A Girl Like This
by She's a Star
Summary: Awkward librarian Evelyn Carnahan stumbles upon a discovery that leads her to a legendary city, and her once-boring life becomes filled with adventure, bickering fests with attractive American men, and . . . resurrected mummies? What fun.
1. A Discovery

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A Girl Like This

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by She's a Star

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Disclaimer: The faaaabulous movie The Mummy belongs to Stephen Sommers. :) Most of the scenes that weren't featured in the movie are mine; a few are his. (I used an early draft of the script to make sure I had the dialogue right, so it may be a bit different.)

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Author's Note: This is my first Mummy fic in over a year, and my first chapter Mummy fic as well. I've always thought Evelyn was a wonderful character (she's definitely on my top 5 list of the best fictional heroines), so I decided to write The Mummy from her perspective with a bit of extra things thrown in. :) I hope I can do the characters justice...wish me luck!

...and review. Reviews are good.

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Dedication: To Buffelyn, who is simply wonderful and whose masterpiece Cost of a Glance inspired me to write this in the first place. :) 

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Chapter One: A Discovery

I now knew for a fact that I shouldn't have gotten out of bed that morning.

Before, I had suspected it. To start the day off on a less-than-glowing note, I'd overslept when the curator of the Cairo Museum of Antiquities had specifically asked that I arrive early. Over the years that I'd worked there, I'd made a few barely significant mistakes that had caused him to grow a bit...wary of me. Then, checking the mail on the way out, I'd made the discovery that the Bembridge scholars had rejected my application for the seventh time, claiming I 'lacked experience in the field'.

And now, due to a most unfortunate incident with a ladder while attempting to put a volume back into the T section, the entirety of the museum library lay strewn about the floor. 

Hoping desperately that what I'd just seen had been some kind of hallucination, I studied the toppled-over shelves in horrified shock. 

My lips uttered the only word that came to mind.

"Oops."

_Perhaps the curator won't notice,_ I thought desperately. _Perhaps he wouldn't have heard...perhaps..._

"Look at this!!!"

Or perhaps he _would_ notice and fire me.

It certainly seemed the most likely.

"Sons of the Messiah!" the curator groaned, eyes flashing angrily. "Give me frogs, flies, locusts! Anything but this! Compared to _you_, the other plagues were a joy!"

"I'm so very sorry," I apologized quickly, attempting to hide my nervousness.

He was going to fire me, my career was as good as destroyed - all thanks to Tuthmosis.

"It was an accident," I continued helplessly.

The curator apparently didn't seem to think the same.

"When Ramses destroyed Syria, _that_ was an accident. _You_ are a catastrophe!"

I would have been wounded if I hadn't heard it what seemed a thousand times before.

"Why do I put up with you??" he asked, almost sounding as though he were questioning himself rather than me.

Attempting not to stumble my words, I adapted my most professional tone and answered.

"You put up with me because...because I can read and write ancient Egyptian," I said quickly, resisting the urge to count off the reasons on my fingers. "decipher hieroglyphics and hieratic, _and_ I'm the only person within _a thousand miles_ who knows how to properly code and catalogue this library!"

I finished triumphantly, but he would have none of it.

"I put up with you because your mother and father were our finest patrons," he corrected me. "Allah rest their souls. Now, straighten out this mess!"

And with that, he turned and stormed from the room.

I groaned inwardly at the prospect of cleaning up the library. Surely it would take weeks, or at least days! And there was no way that I could do it myself. 

Nearly ready to collapse into frustrated sobs, I took a deep breath when I noticed a dim light shining from the next room where the mummies were displayed.

Immediately I tensed up, nervousness dancing its way through me. 

Surely there was no one there; we were closed. An intruder. It had to be.

Well, I certainly wouldn't be able to put up with one of them. Outside screaming and digging my fingernails into an attacker's flesh, I was absolutely useless at self defense.

Up until now, nothing had ever called for it.

_Oh, Evy,_ I lectured myself, _Don't overreact. It's nothing._

Taking a deep breath, I made my way slowly into the room. 

"Hello?" I called out nervously, only to have my own voice bounce back at me. 

_Well, honestly, Evelyn, it's not as though they're going to _respond_ unless they're incredibly stupid._

My eyes nervously scanned the gallery, searching for a trace of movement.

Nothing.

I reached for a torch that lit the corridor and held it as I continued, the slightest bit comforted by its hazy warmth. 

"Abdul?" I called timidly. "Mohammed?"

....

"Bob?"

Still nothing. Nothing....

_Thump._

I gasped, and continued slowly forward. The noise seemed to come from one of the sarcophagus holding a displayed mummy.

An _open_ sarcophagus.

_Maybe..._

No, that was foolish...there was no way the mummy could come alive.

_It's just a rat or something,_ I thought, forcing myself to walk forward and inspect. 

I leaned over slowly...slowly...

And in a split-second, the mummy sat straight up. Its long-since decomposed face seemed fixed in a malicious grin.

A shrill, forceful screech filled my ears, which I discovered seconds later was my own. 

And then laughter.

Very familiar, _very_ drunken laughter.

Jonathan.

I glared at my older brother as he sat up from next to the mummy, shaking with mirth.

I had found the source of its 'resurrection'.

"Have you _no_ respect for the dead?" I snapped furiously, taking a few deep breaths in an attempt to still my racing heart.

"Of course I do," he retorted with an easy grin, slinging an arm around the mummy. "Sometimes, I'd rather like to join them!"

"Well," I began angrily, my hand shooting across his cheek in a light slap, "I wish you'd do it sooner rather than later before you ruin my career the way you've ruined yours! Now, get out!!"

He obliged, stumbling a bit before seating himself on a tomb.

"My dear, sweet baby sister," he retorted, drawing out his words, "I'll have you know that at this moment my career is on a high note."

"High note?" I smirked. "Ha! For five years you've been scrounging around Egypt, and what have you to show for it? _Nothing!_"

I took a seat beside him.

"And the Bembridge scholars have rejected my application again," I continued miserably. "They say I lack experience in the field."

Jonathan smiled and planted a kiss on my forehead. "You always have me, old mum."

I attempted to keep up my furious act, but abandoned it and smiled back.

"Besides," he continued brightly, "I've got just the thing to cheer you up!"

I groaned. "Oh no, Jonathan, not _another_ worthless trinket! If I have to bring one more piece of junk to the curator to try and..."

However, my lecture faded off as he pulled the 'worthless trinket' from his jacket. It was a small, angular-looking golden box. Or at least, I suspected it was gold...it was so worn with age that it was difficult to tell.

Immediately, I snatched the box from Jonathan's hand.

"Where did you get this??"

He replied with nonchalance, "On a dig down in...Thebes."

I hardly paid attention to his reply; instead, I studied the box intently, trying to absorb every aspect of it. I'd never seen anything like this before...

"My whole life I've never found anything," Jonathan continued, hopeful. "Evy, please tell me I've found something."

My fingers worked over the smooth box, and as though on cue, it popped open. Angular edges surrounded it, giving it the appearance of a sun. 

"Jonathan..." I started in awe.

From inside the box, I found a piece of papyrus, folded into a small square. It was yellowed with age, and felt as though it would break into worn shreds if handled un-delicately. I carefully unfolded it to reveal a map.

"I think you've found something."

~ * ~

"This is amazing!" Jonathan proclaimed as we made our way to the curator's office. "Absolutely bloody Goddamn amazing!"

"Yes, Jonathan," I responded impatiently. "It certainly is, but is profanity necessary?"

"Of course, old mum!" he said brightly. "It really puts an emphasis on it, you know?"

I rolled my eyes. "Now, Jonathan, I won't have any of your swearing in front of the curator. He's already a bit...annoyed with me as it is, and I don't want you worsening the situation."

"Me?" Jonathan asked innocently. "Please, Evy, have you ever met someone who didn't absolutely _bask_ in the pleasure of my company?"

"I'll choose not to answer that," I replied tersely as we reached the door leading to his office. Taking a deep breath and exchanging a nervous smile with Jonathan, I rapped on it lightly with my knuckles.

"Come in," the curator's voice beckoned.

I swung open the door, shaking a bit with excitement and checking my purse to see that the box was still there.

"Ah, Miss Carnahan," he said with a forced smile. The attempt at a grin disappeared completely when his eyes fell upon Jonathan. "...Mr. Carnahan."

Jonathan was apparently oblivious to his lack of warmth.

"Hey there, old man!" he exclaimed, rushing up to the curator's desk and grabbing at his hand, shaking it vigorously. "How are you?"

"Fine, thank you," the curator replied in a clipped tone, distaste apparent in his features. "To what do I owe this...pleasure?"

I approached his desk with a pleasant smile, making sure to slam my heel-clad foot onto Jonathan's in the way. He let out a yelp of pain which I ignored.

"You see, sir," I said, pulling the box from my purse and showing it to him, "My brother found this on a dig in Thebes."

"How extraordinary," the curator responded dryly, looking the least bit interested. "And why, Miss Carnahan, did you feel compelled to bring it all the way here?"

"Well, you see," I continued, pressing at the slat that triggered it to open. "There's a map inside."

I produced it and handed the faded paper to him.

He studied it, eyes growing wide. 

Jonathan really _had_ found something.

But in a split-second, his expression had returned to one of disinterest.

"How interesting, Miss Carnahan."

Looking a bit reluctant, he removed a jeweler's eyepiece from his desk and proceeded in studying the map.

"Oh, it's more than interesting," I assured him, pointing at the map. "See the cartouche there? It's the official royal seal of Seti the First, I'm sure of it."

"Perhaps," the curator said mildly.

A pent-up scream of annoyance began to beg its release. He was a scholar, an expert on Egyptian history, and yet he acted as though this was nothing more than a scrap of paper!  
"Two questions," Jonathan cut in, pacing back and forth. "Who the hell is Seti the First? And was he rich?"

Typical.

"He was the last pharaoh of the Old Kingdom," I responded, "Said to be the wealthiest pharaoh of them all."

"Good," Jonathan said, eyes brightening. I halfway expected him to lick his lips in anticipation. "That's good. I like this fellow, like him very much."

The curator lifted the map, looking a bit more interested.

_Finally,_ I thought, relieved, _He realizes how important this is!_

"I've already dated it," I continued eagerly. "This map is almost four thousand years old. And the hieratics over here..."

I took a deep breath.

"It's Hamunaptra."

Now the curator seemed interested. Or rather, anxious...almost worried. 

"My dear girl," he started at once, "Don't be ridiculous. We are scholars, not _treasure hunters_. Hamunaptra is a _myth._"

"Are we talking about _the_ Hamunaptra?" Jonathan asked curiously.

"Yes," I responded softly. "The City of the Dead, where the early pharaohs were said to have hidden the wealth of Egypt."

"Right, right," Jonathan said impatiently. "In a big underground treasure chamber. Everybody knows the story. The entire necropolis was rigged to sink into the sand. On Pharaoh's command, a flick of the switch, and the whole place could disappear beneath the dunes."

"All we know is that the city mysteriously vanished around 2,134 BC," I added.

The curator leaned in, studying the map even more intently. Its edge was now dangerously close to the merry orange flame that danced in the candle lamp.

"As the Americans would say," the curator announced, "It's all fairy tales and hokum."

And suddenly the map was engulfed in flames, precious information about to be reduced to cinders. The curator dropped it to the floor, and both Jonathan and I dove down in unison, smothering the fire.

I sighed in relief...the map had been salvaged. But...

"You burnt it!" Jonathan cried, agonized. "You burnt off the part with the lost city!"

"It's for the best, I'm sure," the curator responded casually, as though it were an every day occurrence to go around destroying maps that contained the location of four thousand year old lost cities. "Many men have wasted their lives in the foolish pursuit of Hamunaptra; no one has ever found it."

He paused, a grim sort of smile twisting its way onto his face.

"Most have never returned."


	2. The Rogue Mountain Man

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Author's Note: Thanks for all the reviews :) I've kinda got writer's block on this story right now. Grr. I have a few more chapters written after this one (two, I think), but after that I'm kind of...stuck.

No clue why I'm telling you this. You guys just get to listen to me whine.

Ah, the beauty of author's notes.

:)

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Chapter Two: The Rogue Mountain Man

"I won't stand for this," Jonathan announced the next morning, slamming his fist onto the kitchen table and practically causing my coffee to spill all over my favorite white blouse.

"Be _careful_!" I scolded, lifting the mug and taking a tentative sip.

"Sorry, sorry," he apologized. "But I won't! Think of all the treasure, Evy...I could be rich! Richer than rich! They would have to invent a new word for how rich I was!"

He let out a miserable moan of regretful yearning.

"And that fat old _bastard_ burnt it! He burnt it!" 

"Jonathan!" I snapped.

"Never did like him much," he continued angrily. "But _really_! He calls himself a scholar? Ha! Who goes burning four thousand year old maps?? WHO??"

"Jonathan, calm down," I ordered, vaguely alarmed at his fury. "Calm down. I'm angry about it too, but what can we do?"

Jonathan paused a moment.

"Oh dear," I muttered.

Any second now, his eyes would get The Glint. And then The Smile would blossom on his face. From my inductions drawn from past experiences, I'd learned that The Glint and The Smile could both lead to disaster.

And when together, chaos.

They both came, right on schedule.

"Jonathan, please don't get another far-fetched idea!" I begged. "I barely survived the last one!"

"This is different," he informed me.

"That's what you said last time," I felt compelled to remind him, even though I was nearly positive that it wouldn't do any good.

It didn't.

"Get ready," he instructed me. "We're leaving the house in half an hour."

"To go where, might I ask??"

Jonathan turned to face me, and I got hit full-force with The Glint/Smile. 

"Prison."

~ * ~

"This is _disgusting_," I hissed to Jonathan as we entered the Cairo Prison. "The foulest thing I've ever seen."

"You don't get out much, do you?" Jonathan deadpanned.

"Oh, hush up," I ordered angrily.

The warden made his way over to us, and I couldn't help but wrinkle my nose as I laid eyes on him. He matched the awful prison perfectly, and seemed the type that one could smell before they could see.

With a big grin exposing yellowed, crooked teeth, he proclaimed, "Come, come, step over the threshold!"

_No thank you._

"Welcome to Cairo Prison, my humble home!"

His 'humble home' could easily be summed up in one word.

Ugh.

The warden escorted us across the courtyard, a rickety old gallows standing in the middle of it.

How pleasant.

"You told me you found it on a dig in Thebes!" I hissed.

"I was mistaken," Jonathan responded innocently.

"You lied to me!" I accused, angry.

"I lie to everybody," he said defensively. "What makes you so special?"

"_I_ am your sister," I reminded him in a huff.

"That just makes you all the more gullible."

_Why,_ I wondered, _Can't I have a nice, normal, respectable brother?_

"You stole it from a drunk at the local Casbah??" I asked incredulously.

"Picked his pocket, actually," Jonathan corrected me.

I didn't even make an attempt at surprise. 

"What exactly is this man in prison for?" I asked the warden, giving up the idea of attempting to converse with my brother in fear that my head would explode.

"This I do not know. When I heard you were coming, I asked him that myself," the warden answered.

"And what did he say??"

The warden scoffed. "He said he was just looking for a good time."

At that moment, the door seemed to explode open in a flurry of struggling and thrown punches. Surrounded by a bustle of guards was a man who looked to be in his mid-twenties. He was wretchedly disheveled, and struck me as some sort of rogue mountain man, with light brown hair that hung down past his shoulders and a beard to match. His greenish eyes shone with a sort of animal malice, and he struggled with violent strength to free himself of his captors.

My heart sped up the split-second I saw him, and I felt my cheeks grow warm.

_Oh, Evy, quit being foolish!_ logic screamed at once. _He's some sort of animal, and not the least bit attractive! He's disgusting and foul and you don't like him. You don't like him a bit._

Yes. Right.

"This is...this is the man that you stole it from?" I asked Jonathan weakly, struggling to stay collected.

I ordered myself to look away from the man; he'd surely notice I was staring in a moment, and then it would be too humiliating to bear.

And yet my gaze couldn't waver.

_Foolish, stupid, idiotic, moronic-_

"Who's the broad?" the man asked, his voice smooth and confident.

"Broad?!" I repeated incredulously. 

I'd been right about the rogue mountain man part, apparently.

_Of all the rude, sexist, inconsiderate-_

"She's my sister, actually," Jonathan responded casually.

"Yeah?" the man asked, studying me once more. His eyes seemed to pierce into me, sending shivers up and down my spine. "Well, I guess she's not a total loss."

"I beg your pardon?!?!" I cried, infuriated. Now, that was going too far! There was a fine line between witty repartee and pure audacity, and he'd certainly crossed it! I had half a mind to leave right then and there!

But then I remembered that we were there for a reason, not just so I could be looked over and sexually harassed by some idiot who strongly resembled a Sasquatch.

I had to find out about the map.

Choking back fierce comments, I started, "Um...hello...excuse me?"

He had been studying something else entirely, as though he'd forgotten that we were there.

_Humph._

It was obvious he hadn't had much experience in the presence of ladies.

"We...we found your puzzle box, and we've come to ask you about it-"

"No."

He cut me off at once, strong and confident with the slightest sprinkle of amusement.

"No?" I repeated, puzzled.

"No," he confirmed. "You came to ask me about Hamunaptra."

He knew.

Intrigued, I leaned closer.

Adapting a demure tone, I asked, "How do you know the box pertains to Hamunaptra?"

"Because that's where I was when I found it," he responded, with the air of one speaking to a two-year-old. "I was _there_."

There...he was _there._

It existed.

Hamunaptra existed.

It was lucky that Jonathan began to talk, as I'd completely lost the ability of coherent speech.

"How do we know that's not a load of pig swallow?" he questioned suspiciously.

The man prepared to reply, but then paused and studied him for a moment.

"Do I know you?" he asked.

"Um, no, probably not, I've just got one of those faces-" Jonathan started. His false explanation, however, was cut short as the man's fist came flying through the bars and caught Jonathan square in the cheek.

Too intrigued to express any concern, I allowed my brother to writhe in pain as I leaned closer to the bars.

"You were actually _at_ Hamunaptra?" I questioned.

He smiled casually. "Yeah, I was there."

It all seemed so far-fetched, to surreal to comprehend. And yet, if there _was_ truth to what he was saying....

"You swear?" I asked in an awed whisper.

"Every damn day," he shot back easily.

Clever.

I shook my head impatiently. "No, that's not what I meant-"

"I know what you meant," he cut me off. "I was there, all right. Seti's place. The City of the Dead."

"Could you tell me how to get there? I mean, the _exact_ location."

"You wanna know?" he asked, cocky.

"Well...yes," I breathed, leaning in closer.

"You really wanna know?" 

Good God, how much assurance did he need?

"Yes," I responded, leaning even closer. Excitement danced through my veins. Any second, any second now I would know...

I was shocked out of my little reverie when, to my utmost surprise, he cupped my chin in his hands and pressed his lips to mine full-force.

_ThumpThumpThumpThumpThumpThumpThumpThumpThump._

It felt as though I would suffer a severe heart attack any moment. I had to fight to keep standing. My knees suddenly felt incredibly weak.

"Then get me the hell outta here," he snarled. 

The guards returned, flinging at him full-force before he had time to fight back. 

"Do it, lady!" he barked, struggling as they dragged him away.

I stared at him, stunned.

In the last minute I'd found out that Hamunaptra indeed did exist, a man had been there, and I'd been given a one-second kiss that had every single cliché effect on me, from the racing heart to the weakened knees.

"Where are they taking him?" I asked the warden, feeling a strange sense of fearful foreboding come over me.

"To be hanged," the warden responded.

The whole world seemed to stop in that instant.

My eyes searched the crowd for him, but he had disappeared. To think that the minutes I'd spent with that mystery man could very possibly be his last...

"Apparently," the warden finished with a nasty smile, "he had a _very_ good time."

Knees shaking, I swiftly followed the warden up to a balcony overlooking the courtyard. Certainly I could bargain with him somehow; come up with some way to save the man's life.

The leering eyes of prisoners watched me as I made my way up the steps. Silence fell among them, and I had no trouble guessing at the reason for their interest.

"They have been here for a very, very long time," the warden informed me, grinning. "A beautiful woman like yourself could drive them mad with lust."

I resisted the urge to slap him and instead held my head high and made my way past the prisoners. 

The warden sat down, anticipation written all over his features, as though attending a play or concert. 

_What a disgusting way to derive amusement._

The man had been led out to the square below, a noose fixed around his neck. He stared up at her, expectant.

"I will give you one hundred pounds to save this man's life," I said at once.

"Madam, I would pay one hundred pounds just to see him hanged," the warden responded, uninterested.

"Two...two hundred pounds!" I exclaimed, panic making its way into my heart.

"Proceed!" the warden called down into the roaring crowd.

"Three hundred pounds!" I offered desperately, glancing down at the man once more. His eyes were still fixed upon me, hopeful.

God, I couldn't let him die.

"Five hundred pounds!" I cried.

"Wait," he called down to the hangman.

He turned to me, a lecherous grin on his face.

"And what else?" he asked, his hand slowly creeping toward my leg. "I'm a very lonely man."

With an insulted gasp, I smacked his hand away with my purse. 

Apparently fed up with bargaining, the warden nodded at the anxiously awaiting hangman. With a cruel smile, he pulled the lever.

"No!!" I screamed, terror and disbelief mingling in my heart as I watched the trap door fall open. He fell through, and I winced as the rope grew tight.

_Oh God...oh my God..._

But as the initial shock began to wear off, I realized that he didn't hang, lifeless as a little girl's rag doll. He was still struggling, kicking his feet madly, hands clasped near his neck as he gagged.

If they cut him down in the next few seconds, he would be all right...

"His neck did not break!" the warden announced, delighted. "Oh, I'm so sorry...now we must watch him _strangle_ to death!"

I stared down at him, pained.

"He knows the location to Hamunaptra!" I cried out at once. 

"You lie!" he accused me.

"I would _never_!"

He stared down in disgust at the man.

"Are you telling me this filthy, godless son of a pig knows where to find The City of the Dead?"

"Yes!" 

"Truly?"

"Yes!!" I said quickly. "And if you cut him down, we will give you ten percent!"

"Fifty percent," the warden argued.

"Thirty percent!" I offered frantically.

"Twenty five!" he cried.

Well, if he absolutely _insisted_...

"Ah!" I cried triumphantly. "Deal!"

The warden yelled an order in Arabic, and the hangman cut the rope.

The man fell to the ground, choking and gasping for breath as he massaged his neck. A wry smile made its way onto his face as he looked up at me.

I grinned back.


	3. An Eventful Start

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Chapter Three: An Eventful Start

"Excited, old mum?" Jonathan asked me the next morning as we made our way down the boardwalk on the way to the barge. The spicy sea air and light breeze were sweet and refreshing; it seemed the perfect day to start an adventure.

"Beyond excited," I breathed. "Jonathan, do you know how long I've been dreaming of something like this?"

"An unhealthy amount of time, no doubt," he responded. 

I smiled, then continued searching the dock for the man whose life I had saved the day before.

"Searching for O'Connell, are you?" Jonathan inquired mischievously.

"No," I snapped at once, defensive.

O'Connell. So that was his name.

He smirked at me.

After a brief silence, I asked nonchalantly, "Do you really think he'll show up?"

"Undoubtedly," he responded knowingly. "I know the breed. He may be a cowboy, but his word is his word."

"Personally, I think he's filthy, rude, and a complete scoundrel," I said in my defense at once. The last thing I wanted was for Jonathan to keep throwing 'Evy-has-a-crush' glances at me throughout the entire journey. "I don't like him one bit."

"Anyone I know?"

It was that voice.

His voice.

Oh, God. Could his timing be any more awful??

I turned casually to greet him, but my words were lost on the way to my lips. He certainly cleaned up nicely. He actually looked...handsome; clean-cut and youthful, yet still possessing the rugged aura of the stereotypical action hero.

"Oh..." I said weakly. "Um...hello."

Luckily, Jonathan greeted him as well, hopefully removing his attention from me and my pathetic inarticulacy.

"Smashing day for the start of an adventure, eh, O'Connell?" he asked, shaking his hand.

"Yeah," O'Connell agreed with an amused smile. "Smashing."

He then proceeded in checking his pocket to see that his wallet was still there.

"Oh, relax!" Jonathan insisted with nervous laughter. "I'd never steal from a partner...partner!"

O'Connell studied him, a smirk on his lips.

"Mr. O'Connell," I started, glad to find that I had regained the ability of speech. "Can you look me in the eye and guarantee that this isn't some sort of flimflam? Because if it is, I'm warning you-"

"You're warning me?" he asked with amused disbelief.

My gaze didn't waver. 

He sighed. "Well, let me put it this way. My whole damn Garrison believed in it so much that we marched, without orders, halfway across Lybia and into Egypt to find that city, and all we found was sand...and blood."

He let the words sink in for a moment.

"I'll take your bags," he then offered, picking them up and carrying them up onto the barge.

I stared after him, transfixed.

"Yes, yes, you're right," Jonathan agreed sarcastically. "Filthy, rude, a complete scoundrel; nothing to like there at all."

I glared at him. He certainly wouldn't make this trip easy.

"A bright good morning to all!" the warden's slimy tone filled my ears.

...and neither would he.

It was made quite obvious that the men accompanying me on this trip would all drive me completely mad.

~ * ~

"Where do you want these?"

"Hmm?"

I turned to find O'Connell standing expectantly behind me, still clutching my luggage.

"Oh," I said, "Thank you. I'd completely forgotten. Follow me."

He obliged, and I led him to the cabin where I was staying. 

"Not too shabby," he observed, studying it as he set the bags down onto the floor.

I nodded. "Yes, it's nice."

An awkward silence fell upon us.

"Um...well...thank you for helping me carry my things here."

"No problem," O'Connell replied with a grin. "But this one's pretty Goddamn heavy." 

He gestured to the suitcase where I'd packed all my books.

"What do you keep in there?" he asked, amused. "Bricks?"

"Steel weights, actually," I responded with a sly smile.

He laughed. "And you find it necessary to carry about eighty million pounds of steel weights around with you??"

"They're books," I informed him, opening the suitcase and removing one as evidence.

"Ahhh," he said. "So you're one of those studious ones, huh?"

That threw me off a bit.

"Well, yes," I replied. "I believe that knowledge is an incredibly powerful thing."

"I believe that _experience_ is an incredibly powerful thing," he retorted. "And believe me, Miss Carnahan-"

"Evelyn," I corrected him automatically.

The lightest traces of a smile curved up the corners of his lips.

"And believe me, _Evelyn,_" he said, "I've probably experienced a hell of a lot more than you've read."

"I wouldn't be so sure about that, Mr. O'Connell."

He was quiet for a moment as he glanced back down at the suitcase filled with books.

"Neither would I," he admitted, laughing to himself as he abruptly turned and left the room.

I struggled for a few moments to hide my smile before realizing that there was no one there to witness it anyhow. 

Beaming, I sunk down onto the floor and began unpacking my books.

~ * ~

Night had fallen a few hours before, coating the sky with an ebony black and sprinkling diamond stars across it. They danced across the sky, mingling and sparkling over a blanket of dark velvet.

The soft, rhythmic sway of the river shook the boat ever so slightly back and forth, adding to my relaxation as I enjoyed the calm night. I held a book in my hands, but couldn't bring myself to pay attention. The excitement of what would soon come was too much; focusing on the small black text seemed impossible.

Still, I persevered, pushing my glasses up the bridge of my nose and absently turning the page.

Suddenly, my soothing placidity was destroyed as something fell on the table in front of me with a startling thump.

"Ohh!" I cried in shock, looking up to find O'Connell staring down at me and a gunnysack on the table, the source of my surprise.

"Sorry," he said with a grin, "Didn't mean to scare ya."

"The only thing that scares me, Mr. O'Connell, are your manners," I returned curtly.

He smiled knowingly. "Still angry about that kiss?"

I smirked at him, looking up from my book.

"If you call _that_ a kiss," I responded, not able to resist putting the slightest bit of coquetry in my tone.

He studied me for a moment before reaching into the sack and pulling out many assorted guns in varying sizes.

"Did I miss something?" I asked with a wry smile. "Are we going into battle?"

"Lady, there's something out there. Something under that sand."

"Yes," I agreed, eager to get on the subject of what I hoped most of all to find. "I'm hoping to find a certain artifact...a book, actually."

O'Connell smirked at me, no doubt recalling our earlier conversation.

"My brother thinks there's treasure," I continued, then asked, "What do you think is out there?"

"In one word? Evil."

I studied him curiously.

"The Tuaregs and the Bedouin believe that Hamunaptra is cursed," he elaborated. "They call it 'the doorway to hell'."

"Ahmar is Ossirian... 'Passage to the Underworld', actually," I responded, not able to resist a smug grin. 

He didn't show any sign of being impressed; rather, he looked as though it was just what he'd expected.

"I don't believe in fairy tales and hokum, Mr. O'Connell," I informed him, "but I do believe that one of the most famous books in history is buried out there, The Book of the Living. It's what first interested me in Egypt as a child. It's why I came here...sort of a life's pursuit."

"And the fact that they say it's made out of pure gold means nothing to you?" he asked skeptically.

"You know your history," I said, rather impressed.

"I know my treasure," he corrected me.

We sat in silence for a moment before I rose to leave for bed. I was almost reluctant to leave him, and, feeling strangely daring, paused and asked, "By the way...why did you kiss me?"

He shrugged casually. "I dunno. I was about to be hanged. It seemed like a good idea at the time."

I paused for a moment, shocked. That was certainly not the answer I'd been expecting. Maybe a sheepish 'caught up in the moment' or a blatant 'because I'm deeply and passionately in love with you, Evelyn'.

But... 'it seemed like a good idea at the time'??!!

How dare he??

I doubted it was humanly possible to be any more completely and utterly un-romantic. 

Fury pulsating through my veins, I stormed away after fixing him with a death glare.

"What?" I heard him call from behind me. "What'd I say??"

"Idiot," I muttered darkly.

~ * ~

"George Bembridge in eighteen sixty..."

I trailed off, shaking my head and trying to get O'Connell's infuriating voice out of my head.

_"I dunno...I was about to be hanged. Seemed like a good idea at the time."_

Oooh! That awful, conniving, no-good...no. No, I wouldn't dwell on it. He was a complete fool, and that was that. Obviously I'd mistaken passionate loathing for a spark of romance.

Which it certainly _was not._

"In eighteen sixty five..." I attempted again before slamming the book shut, annoyed.

I made my way over to the vanity.

"Oh, for heaven's sake, it wasn't that good of a kiss anyway," I fumed to my reflection, setting the book on the counter before beginning to run a hairbrush through dark curls. 

Annoyed, I bent down to pick up the book. As I reached for it, I briefly felt as though something had brushed past me, but quickly dismissed it as the wind.

I resumed standing, my eyes returned to my reflection, and I discovered, suddenly paralyzed with fright, that I wasn't the only figure staring back at myself in the mirror.

Standing beside me was a man clad entirely in black, so dark and sinister that I was at once reminded of the grim reaper that Jonathan used to tell me horror stories about when I was a child. One of the man's hands was missing, replaced with a hook that shone in the dim candlelight.

I screamed as he forcefully put the hook to my cheek.

_Oh God...ohGodohGodohGodohGod._

"Where is the map?" he demanded, tone composed entirely of cruelty and malice.

"It's there...there," I whimpered, nodding my head toward where the map sat next to a candle. 

_Now let me go,_ I begged silently. _Let go of me!_

"And the key," he continued in his low, gravelly voice. "Where is the key?"

"Key??" I questioned, practically hysterical. This was the end; he would be positive I was lying. "What key??"

_OhGodohGodohGod..._

"EVELYN!"

I was shaking with trepidation, so scared that everything seemed to happen in a haze before me. In an instant, O'Connell had burst inside, and the room had erupted into a sea of flames. A few of the invaders were consumed in fire, but the man with the hook still stood steadfast, arms wrapped around me. As though in a trance, I lifted the candle and slammed it backwards, and judging by his shriek of agony, didn't miss my target of his face. I was freed of him.

And then, in a flash of fire and screams of pain, I was out of the room, O'Connell pulling me behind him. Blissful relief filled me at the prospect of leaving the hellish surroundings, but I realized with a start-

"The map! The map! I forgot the map!"

I struggled to turn and run back, but O'Connell had his arm firmly latched around me.

"Relax!" he ordered. "I'm the map!" With a tap to his forehead, he announced, "It's all up here."

"Well, that's comforting," I deadpanned.

He surged forward, dragging me along with him as he rushed through the hall. 

When we emerged from it, we found the deck ablaze with flame and gunfire.

"Hold this," O'Connell instructed, handing me his gunnysack after pulling a few firearms from it. 

I took the bag, watching him anxiously as he loaded the weapons. Gunshots flung through the flimsy wall that served as our protection, growing closer and closer with each shot to where O'Connell stood.

It was apparent that he was too absorbed in his gun-loading to pay attention, so I took the liberty of pulling him out of the line of fire. He flashed me a grateful glance before hastening into action.

He fired a few shots with expert aim, causing one of the black-clad invaders to collapse to the ground, writhing in pain.

O'Connell didn't even flinch.

_How can you kill someone without even acknowledging it?_ I wanted to ask, but decided not to trouble him. He appeared to be very engrossed in his moment of action.

We made our way to the edge of the boat, and he momentarily stopped shooting.

"Can you swim?" he asked.

"Well, of _course_ I can swim, if the occasion calls for it!" I responded in annoyance, wondering what on Earth he was getting at. One didn't usually stop in the midst of gunfire to ask another whether or not they could swim.

"Trust me," he replied, picking me up swiftly. "It calls for it."

And with that, he dropped me from the side of the boat.

"O'Connell!" I shrieked, only to end up with a mouthful of water. I fought to keep myself above water and concentrated on swimming to surface, which was in plain view but seemed a million miles away.

We had yet to even arrive at Hamunaptra, and already I felt I'd had more adventure than I could handle.

_Perhaps,_ I concluded, _I'm more fit to be a librarian._


	4. An Unlikely Conversation

****

Author's Note: Thank you so much to everyone who's reviewed! I love you guys. :) From here on, I'm going to be moving away from the actual movie scenes and doing some original stuff in between parts in the film. 

Chapter Four: An Unlikely Conversation

"Thank you," I said earnestly to the Bedouin woman who had sold me a dress for a considerably low price. After nearly eight hours in a damp nightgown (which had clung to my curves in an annoyingly audacious manner; O'Connell had kept sneaking glances at me), the smooth black dress seemed a gift from heaven. 

"You welcome," she responded in broken English. "Very beautiful girl."

"Thank you," I said again, flushing a bit. I spotted O'Connell standing with Jonathan next to the camels they'd purchased, conversing easily about one thing or another.

O'Connell mumbled something to Jonathan as I approached before suddenly falling silent. His gaze was firmly fixed on me, so intense that it shot shivers up and down my spine.

I felt a blush rise to my cheeks, and I allowed my line of vision to fall from him to the sand. A flattered smile so forceful that I didn't attempt to fight it back made its way across my face.

My eyes shyly made their way back to him to find him absently stroking the camel, still staring.

"W...why are you looking at me like that?" I asked, attempting at a joke. "I know it's not a dripping wet nightgown, but-"

"You're really beautiful," he replied, voice low and husky. My brother rolled his eyes. 

"Here we go," Jonathan groaned.

O'Connell didn't seem to hear him...either he had suddenly been hit by an intense sunburn, or he was blushing. 

That was certainly something I'd never expected to see.

"I mean...er...um...you look really...yeah...you're...let's get going."

It was definitely strange to see him flustered.

Not that I didn't enjoy it.

~ * ~

"Never did like camels," Jonathan announced, wrinkling his nose in disgust as we set out across the desert. "Filthy buggers; they smell, they bite, they spit...disgusting."

"I think they're adorable," I declared, stroking the head of the camel I rode. 

From where he followed in behind, the prison warden began to sing in Arabic, voice painfully off-key and wavering with each step the camel took.

I exchanged a look with O'Connell, who looked as though he'd very much enjoy ripping out our dear friend the warden's vocal cords.

"I can't take this," Jonathan proclaimed in disgust before beginning his own horrendous rendition of '99 Bottles Of Beer On The Wall'.

This looked as though it would be an incredibly long day.

~ * ~

Night left us to drown in an endless sea of blue. The navy sky painted the sand a dark indigo, patches of it a fainter shade than others depending upon whether it was basked in the moonlight.

A yawn escaped my lips, and I allowed my aching eyes to rest shut. It seemed nearly impossible to sleep, with the camel's jerky, uneven steps jolting me back and forth every few seconds, but I could at least attempt to relax a bit.

"You still awake up there, O'Connell?" I heard Jonathan ask.

"Yup," O'Connell replied shortly.

"You're not a big talker, are you?" Jonathan continued his line of questions.

"Nope." 

"Yeah, I gathered."

They fell silent again, and I was about to drift into sleep, when-

"Hey, Jonathan?"

"What?"

"What kind of guys does your sister like?"

It took all my self-control not to burst into a fit of astonished laughter. 

"Oh, Evy?" Jonathan asked casually.

"Do you have any _other_ sisters?" O'Connell asked, frustrated. It sounded as though he spoke through gritted teeth.

"Good point," Jonathan said thoughtfully. 

"Ugggh," O'Connell groaned. "Forget I asked."

"No, no, no," Jonathan said jovially. "I insist."

"Shoot, then," O'Connell ordered.

"Well, she likes the bookish ones, I suppose," Jonathan said. "You know, the ones that wear wire-rim glasses and throw eight-syllable-words into everyday conversation."

"Oh," O'Connell said flatly.

"Almost married one of them once," Jonathan continued. "I'm glad the bloody bastard went out and cheated on her. Let me tell you, having that chap as a brother-in-law would have been _torture_."

"Wait a second," O'Connell said slowly. "Baaack up there...cheated on her??"

Oh, wonderful. Now Jonathan would be sure to fill him in on every melodramatic detail concerning the _one_ serious romance I'd ever had.

"Ohhh, yes," Jonathan said sympathetically. "Poor old mum...that one really hit her hard."

"Why would anyone cheat on her??" O'Connell asked, still sounding completely bewildered.

_Lord, he's going to torture me with this information._

"God, I don't know!" Jonathan said, sounding a little annoyed. "Look at all the other women in the world! There are some gorgeous ones out there."

"_She's_ gorgeous," O'Connell said defensively.

I could practically hear Jonathan wrinkling his nose while I fought to hold back a pleased smile.

"Well, I really don't see her that way, sorry."

"What happened with this guy, anyway?" O'Connell asked curiously. 

"It was probably around two years ago," Jonathan started. "Evy had just started working at the museum, and he worked there as well. Nathan, his name was."

"I never liked that name," O'Connell scowled.

"Yes, well," Jonathan said. "Evy was just enamored with him. He loved all the same things as her - the same books, the same boring old Egyptian stuff that I never gave a damn about. He was over at our house for dinner every night...unbearable chap. Couldn't understand what he was saying half the time, he used such big words. He and Evy would stay late at the museum... 'organizing the card catalogues'...that was her excuse you know, but I knew what she was up to. I knew that she and that arse were just-"

Leave it to Jonathan, to make a perfectly innocent activity like organizing card catalogues sound like a code for crazed licentious sex.

"Okay, okay," O'Connell said, sounding mildly disgusted. "I get it. You can really skip that part."

"Just thought you might like to know," Jonathan said innocently. "Anyway, he proposed, she accepted, everything was fine-and-dandy. Until..."

"...until?" O'Connell repeated impatiently.

"Until one day she comes into the museum after hours to find that dirty bastard 'organizing the card catalogues' with another woman," Jonathan finished with a heavy sigh. "Poor Evy. She was really crushed after that. Loved that slimy bastard a lot. Hasn't had a boyfriend since." He paused. "Come to think of it, she hadn't really had one before him either."

I faintly wondered if he could make me sound _any_ more pathetic.

"Her first kiss was at age twenty-two, actually."

_Yes,_ he could. (And it was twenty-one, thankyouverymuch.)

At that moment, I wanted nothing more than to drop my little 'asleep' charade, march on over to my beloved brother, and strangle him.

Slowly.

"Well," O'Connell said, sounding almost hopeful. "Since she was hurt by the... 'bookish type' last time, don't you think that she'd want to try another type this time? You know?"

"I don't know, O'Connell," Jonathan responded. "Would anyone besides the bookish type have the slightest bit of interest in her?"

Silence.

"Oh, well, besides you of course," Jonathan added. "It's pretty bloody obvious that you're positively smitten with my lovely sister."

"I never said that," O'Connell growled.

"Sure, sure," Jonathan said dismissively.

More silence.

"Jonathan, what if I _was_ smitten with your sister?"

"Well, you'd better not break her heart then. You should've seen what I did to Nathan. After Evy told me what happened, I marched right on over to his house and put him in his place! He definitely won't be messing with the Carnahans again."

I couldn't help but notice how he oh-so-subtly left out the part where he'd been practically beaten to a bloody pulp after throwing a punch at Nathan and missing by roughly a foot.

"Jonathan, I don't have any intention of breaking your sister's heart, okay?"

My brother's tone was suspicious. "Are you sure, O'Connell? Because you don't exactly seem the type to value fidelity..."

"Hey," O'Connell snapped. "I like Evelyn, okay?"

"Okay," Jonathan said wistfully. "Just keep telling yourself that when some gorgeous leggy blonde comes along."

"_Jonathan!_" O'Connell snarled. "I am attempting to ask for your _help_, okay?"

"All right, all right," Jonathan said, sounding ruffled. "Calm down. Honestly. Americans."

"Jonathan, rest assured: if you had to deal with yourself, you'd be pretty snappish too."

"What do you mean by that? I'm nothing less than charming and witty conversationalist."

"...Right. Anyway, just...help me with Evy?"

Jonathan sighed. "Fine. I'll do it out of the goodness of my heart."

"Thank you," O'Connell growled. "Now, what should I do? What kind of stuff does she like?"

"Well, first, listen to her Ancient Egypt babbling. Act like you're interested. She'll love it. And don't treat her all mushy. Keep up the witty banter; witty banter is good, very good."

"Okay..." O'Connell said slowly, as though trying to memorize Jonathan's advice.

"Protect her from the mummies," Jonathan continued.

_What??_

"What??"

"Those things make her jumpy," Jonathan said earnestly. "Honestly; one will sit up in its sarcophagus and she goes mad. Screeching and gasping and putting her hand to her heart. All of that."

"Oookay then," O'Connell said, sounding as though he thought Jonathan to be an escapee from an insane asylum. (I noticed my dear brother got that a lot.) "I'll keep that in mind...anything else?"

"Get her presents," Jonathan concluded. "Women love presents."

O'Connell laughed shortly. "We're out in the middle of the desert, Jonathan. What am I supposed to get her? Sand??"

"Easy," Jonathan said. "Steal something."

"What??"

"She'll never know!" Jonathan assured him. "It works every time."

"There's not a whole lot out here to steal either, Jonathan."

"Well, sorry, dear boy, but that's all I've got for you."

"Thanks," O'Connell said hesitantly.

"Any time," Jonathan responded merrily. 

They fell silent for a moment, and I paused for a moment to let the sheer hilarity of the conversation sink in. Never in a million years would I have expected O'Connell asking my brother (who hasn't the slightest clue about women) about advice to gain my affections. I blankly wondered if I was dreaming. If someone had told me that morning that the conversation would take place, I would have responded that mummies would come alive (_without_ Jonathan's help) before that occurrence.

"O'Connell?" Jonathan's voice broke the silence.

"Hmm?"

"Best of luck, old boy."

"...Thanks."


	5. The Lost City

****

Author's Note: My goodness, I'm sorry for the extreme lack of updates. I kept putting it off and putting it off...Eeep. 

Anyhoo, this chapter isn't all that exciting - it's rather blah. Things will get better in the next few chapters, I hope. :-) And as always, I apologize for any mistakes in the script, etc.

****

Chapter Five: The Lost City

I awoke the next morning surrounded by gold. The rising sun had stained the sky a sparkling yellow-orange, and the course sand adapted the shade as well. I sighed, a lazy smile on my lips as I studied the sunrise.

"You're up."

O'Connell.

"Good morning," I responded brightly, remembering the previous night's conversation which I'd overheard.

"Did you sleep well?" 

"Oh, yes," I said earnestly. 

"You didn't hear...anything?" he continued cautiously.

I held back laughter. "No, I don't believe so...why do you ask?"

"There were just some...noises last night," O'Connell said, attempting nonchalance. "Didn't want them to scare you."

"I assure you, Mr. O'Connell, I don't scare easily."

He gave me an infuriatingly cocky grin. "We'll see about that when we get to Hamunaptra."

I began to feel faintly annoyed. "And what, pray tell, do you mean by that?"

"Well," he said with a shrug. "There's something there. Something bad. Dangerous. It's not exactly the place for women."

"Do you imply that I won't be able to handle it?" I snapped, now officially infuriated. 

"I don't know," he responded, indifferent. "You just seem the type that would be safer sitting at a tea party."

Wretched chauvinistic pig.

"I'll have you know, Mr. O'Connell," I proclaimed heatedly, growing louder and more livid with each word, "That _just_ because I am a woman doesn't mean that I won't be fully capable of this expedition! I've devoted my entire life to this, and I'd be willing to bet you a _large_ sum of money that I'll remain more calm and collected once we reach Hamunaptra than you will! At least I don't believe in silly ghouls and monsters haunting the place!"

"I wouldn't make that proclamation until we get there," he snapped.

"Unlike more _stupid_ individuals who I won't waste my time naming, _I_ am not foolish enough to believe in your silly monster tales!" I spat. "I base my beliefs on facts rather than silly superstitions!"

And with that, I lightly dug my heels into the camel's sides, causing it to speed up and leave O'Connell in the dust where he most certainly belonged.

_Stupid, idiotic, narcissistic man!_ I thought angrily. _I have no idea what he was talking about last night. If he's trying to win my affection, he'll never succeed...not until he learns a few things about the superior gender._

"Jeez," I heard him mutter from behind. "Touchy, touchy."

I didn't bother with an answer.

~ * ~

Unbeknownst to me, a turbulent rivalry had sprung from between my traveling partners and the Americans who were also searching for the Lost City. They approached us with lips curled in sneers of dislike which O'Connell and Jonathan returned (the latter looking rather comical).

"Good morning, my friend," the leader of the Americans who was apparently a past acquaintance of O'Connell's (I believed his name was Beni) called. His voice was oily and a bit nervous, and his large eyes gave him the appearance of an overgrown housefly.

O'Connell nodded briskly in return before pausing, gaze fixed intently on the horizon.

I wondered what he was doing, but didn't bother to ask. After all, it was clear that the sexist Neanderthal didn't think I was courageous enough to take part on the journey.

I glanced at Beni, whose eyes were fixed in the same direction as O'Connell's with identical intensity.

Confused, Jonathan and I exchanged a look. Clearly, something important was about to happen, and I was desperate to know what it was. If there was anything I couldn't stand, it was not possessing knowledge that others seemed to.

"Well, what the hell we doin'?" one of the Americans demanded impatiently.

"Patience, my good sahib," Beni ordered. "Patience."

Another one of the Americans looked at O'Connell, sneering.

"Remember our bet, O'Connell," he sneered. "First one to the city. Five hundred cash bucks!"

O'Connell ignored him.

"Hey O'Connell," Beni called snidely. "Nice camel."

O'Connell didn't reply, and instead stroked the camel's head with an expression that seemed he wished Beni were anywhere but there. I couldn't blame him; I was already beginning to detest the little twit myself.

"Get ready," O'Connell said, voice low.

I momentarily forgot my anger directed towards him in the unbearable excitement of the moment.

"For what??" I asked eagerly.

"We're about to be shown the way," he muttered.

As if on cue, the hazy sunlight seemed to paint a picture into the sky. It wavered like a reflection in the water, shimmering in liquid gold. 

A mirage.

And though the image wavered and the view was faint, I knew immediately what it was.

Hamunaptra.

After a moment of amazed silence, the Americans burst into a loud round of enthusiastic whoops and cheers before taking off toward it. 

"Here we go again," O'Connell muttered, following suit. Jonathan did the same, and, filled with a sudden burst of energy, I raced after them. 

The wind tousled my hair as I rode, a smile involuntarily blossoming onto my face as I gained speed. It was an exhilarating rush, a certain sense of freedom that I'd yearned for in vain while organizing books at the museum for three excruciating years.

Ahead, O'Connell and Beni were engaging in a violent fight, lashing each other with whips in a desperate attempt to get ahead. Finally, after an intense moment of beating one another like pack mules, Beni went toppling from his camel and to the ground. 

I grew closer to him, faster and faster, as he moaned in pain.

"Serves you right," I announced, eyeing him distastefully.

The camel attained more and more speed, and within seconds I was next to O'Connell. I beamed at him, too excited to dwell upon our argument, and he gave me a crooked smile in return, looking a bit surprised that I had forgotten the row so quickly.

I debated over what to say - should I apologize or just act as though I had completely forgotten the quarrel? He studied me expectantly for a moment, and just as I'd phrased a semi-coherent answer in my head, the camel lurched forward.

A sudden burst of energy had apparently overtaken it, and it doubled speed.

"Ohh!" I cried out in surprise, leaving O'Connell behind as the camel's trotting grew even more rapid.

Hamunaptra grew closer and closer, standing in its majestic glory that I'd dreamed about since childhood. There was an inexplicable bliss at the prospect of visiting a place that had fascinated me for as long as I could remember. I'd always considered it to be a mere myth until recently, and now I was speeding toward it. For a brief moment I wondered if it was just a mirage, but it looked so steady now, so whole.

And yet I couldn't quite grasp that it was real.

The wind was rushing through my hair now, and a smile broke out onto my face as the camel galloped forward.

"Whoo!" I heard Jonathan shout from behind. "Go Evy! Go!"

And suddenly, in a flash of wind in my hair and sand stinging my eyes, I was there. Jonathan still cheered behind me as I descended from the camel and ran my hand lightly over one of the great stone columns.

It was solid.

It was real.

I felt ecstatic and at the same time oddly relaxed, as though I were meant to be here. Egypt seemed to dance its way through my blood; I had always loved it, thrived for its history and culture. If such a thing as reincarnation existed (though I firmly believed it didn't), I was somehow sure that I would have been part of Egypt when the civilization had thrived so many thousands of years ago. 

I was lost in my thoughts and the warm feel of the sun-scorched stone beneath my fingers as O'Connell rode up behind me.

"Thanks," he said.

I looked up to find him smiling. 

"For what?" I inquired.

As the scowling Americans entered the desolate necropolis, O'Connell's grin widened.

"You just won me five hundred bucks."

"Don't be a bastard and rub it in, O'Connell," one of the Americans (Henderson, if I was correct) ordered, sneering. 

O'Connell simply smiled. 

"I should try this betting thing more often."

~ * ~

"That's the statue of Anubis," I announced to Jonathan and O'Connell, gesturing toward the wind-worn sculpture, withered with age. It was still so surreal, to actually be _there_. I had half a mind to start skipping around, screeching with joy.

Then again, I didn't want everyone to think I'd gone mad.

Instead, I continued my explanation of the statue. "His legs go deep underground. According to the Bembridge scholars, that's where we'll find the secret compartment containing the book of Amun-Re."

Completely uninterested, Jonathan fiddled around with one of the ancient mirrors that stood next to him. 

"Jonathan, you're meant to catch the sun with that," I informed him, a bit impatient. 

I could feel O'Connell's eyes on me...it was both unsettling and completely exhilarating all at once.

"So, uh...what are these old...uh, mirrors for?"

He seemed almost...nervous. 

"Ancient mirrors," I responded. "It's an ancient Egyptian trick...you'll see."

He watched me for a moment, almost as though he were attempting to work up the courage to do something. I had no idea what it could possibly be, and sincerely hoped that Jonathan hadn't put anymore ideas into his head after I'd fallen asleep. 

"Uh...here," he said, pulling a small tool kit from behind his back. I couldn't help but notice his extensive use of 'uh's. 

It was rather endearing.

"This is for...uh, you," he continued, handing the tool kit to me. "Go ahead. It's something I borrowed off our American brethren."

Oh God.

He'd actually done it. He'd taken Jonathan's advice. 

Flashes of their conversation from the night before danced through my mind.

__

"Steal something."

"What??"

"She'll never know! It works every time."

Dazed, I studied it.

"Thought you might like it," O'Connell stammered. "...You might need it for your, uh, you know..."

He nervously pantomimed using a hammer and chisel for a moment before freezing for a moment. 

Perhaps he'd just realized exactly what he was doing.

Abruptly, he turned and walked away, brushing against the warden and glaring at him.

"What are you looking at?" he snapped.

I stared after him, laughter begging to escape my lips but sheer surprise preventing it. 

_Dear Lord,_ I thought worriedly, _He must really be desperate to take Jonathan's advice._

It was quite sad, really.

And what was even sadder was that it was working remarkably well.


	6. Something Very Naughty

****

Author's Note: Eep - sorry for the lack of updates. I forgot about this story. *looks guilty* As always, I apologize for script errors, etc. This chapter's pretty short, rather boring, but hopefully Chapter 7 will make up for it. I quite like how that one turned out.

Chapter Six: Something Very Naughty

The air was thick with dust and humidity, though the temperature had declined significantly since we'd entered the tomb. A shiver of sheer anticipation ran up and down my spine as I stared in awe at my surroundings. It was beautiful, possessing a strange sort of aura...like a long-forgotten dream from years past. 

"Do you realize," I started in a voice hardly over a whisper. Foolish as it sounded, I was almost afraid to break the crystalline silence. "that we're in a room that no one has entered in over three thousand years?"

My fingers swept lightly across one of the mirrors in a near pointless attempt to rid it of cobwebs and dust that had built over the many, many centuries. Biting my lip in concentration, I repositioned the mirror and announced softly, "And then there was light."

Immediately, a golden ray of light caught the mirror and bounced to another like it across the room. The procedure repeated suit until we were surrounded by a warm hazy light.

"Hey, that is a neat trick," O'Connell commented.

I ignored him, staring around in awe. My eyes hungrily drank in the sight. I'd read about these, oh yes, countless times, but to actually _be_ there was so utterly surreal.

"Oh my God," I murmured, dazed. "It's a preparation room."

"Preparation for what?" O'Connell asked.

"For entering the afterlife," I responded, a bit mischievously.

O'Connell immediately reached for his gun, and I couldn't help but smirk at him. 

"Mummies, my good son," Jonathan said. To my surprise, he actually sounded interested. "This is where they made the mummies."

Excitement dancing through my veins with blood, I continued forward down a narrow passageway. Cobwebs immediately surrounded me, and I stifled a cough at the thick dust that hung in the air. I studied the walls in awe, wondering what it had been like to cross through these tunnels when they were fresh and clean rather than old and worn.

The others trailing behind me, I continued walking when suddenly a strange sort of noise filled the air. It was soft, faint at first, but quickly gained force.

"What's that?"

I stared at the ceiling, which seemed to be the source of the strange sound - it was almost like squealing, or shrieking. Well, whatever it was, I didn't like it...it almost made my skin crawl.

"Sounds like...bugs," O'Connell announced, faintly puzzled.

"What do you mean, bugs?" asked the warden, alarmed. "I hate bugs!"

"Oh, do toughen up, will you?" Jonathan snapped irritably. "Honestly, a grown man, afraid of bugs."

This was a bit rich for him to say, as he'd had a bit of a run-in with a bee during childhood and hadn't quite been the same since.

"Oh, quit your bickering, you two," I ordered impatiently. 

"They're a real match made in heaven, aren't they?" O'Connell muttered to me, grinning crookedly. I flashed him a smile in return as we approached the entrance to another ancient room.

O'Connell approached slowly, and I trailed after at the same speed, silently wishing that he would hurry up. 

"The legs of Anubis," I declared, studying the sculpture that stood in the center of the chamber. "The secret compartment should be hidden around here..."

My searching, however, was cut short when a soft, distant sound filled the air. It sounded like voices, and yet I couldn't distinguish any words. My heartbeat quickened as we stood, hidden, behind the statue. O'Connell had a grim expression on his face and pair of guns in his hands. It was rather reassuring, having him there. Though I was a bit frightened, his presence seemed to promise that no harm would come to us.

We inched slowly along the sculpture before O'Connell leapt out, guns at the ready. I followed him, to find us face to face with-

...the Americans.

I breathed an enormous sigh of relief.

"You scared the beejeezus out of us, O'Connell!" Henderson accused.

"Likewise," O'Connell retorted evenly.

"Heeey, that's my tool kit!"

One of the men gestured to the kit I held in my arms, reaching as though to retrieve it.

In one swift movement, O'Connell lifted the guns threateningly.

"Perhaps I was mistaken," the American said hastily.

"This is _our_ dig site," another of the Americans sneered.

"We got here first," I shot back angrily. Oh no. They _certainly_ wouldn't be the ones to dig here..._we_ would be the ones to find the book, I would make sure of that.

"This here is our statue...buddy," Daniels spat.

"I don't see your name on it...pal," O'Connell shot back vehemently.

"Well," Beni said with aggravating haughtiness that such a pathetic person shouldn't have been able to possess, "Since there are only four of you and fifteen of me, your odds are not so good."

"I've had worse," O'Connell sneered.

"Yeah!" Jonathan agreed fervently in a miserably failed attempt at intimidation. "Me too!"

Everyone studied him skeptically for a moment until he looked away, chagrined.

A plan formulating in my mind, I spoke up, exasperated.

"For goodness sake, enough. If we're going to play together, we must learn to share."

Staring meaningfully at him, I rested my hand lightly on O'Connell's arm and tried to ignore the tingles that ran through my fingers. He looked back down at me, confused.

"There are other places to dig," I finished pointedly, slightly widening my eyes.

He gave me a quick hint of a smile, understanding.

~*~

"Really, should we be doing this?" Jonathan asked. "I mean, really, is the book all that important? It's just a book-"

I abruptly silenced him with a glare.

"Right," he said quickly. "Yes, yes, we must get the book. Really important, the book is."

Rolling my eyes, I exchanged a look with O'Connell before handing my brother a sledgehammer identical to the one O'Connell held. I opted to chip at it with the chisel I'd found in the stolen tool kit.

"According to my calculations, we should be right under the statue," I announced. "We'll come up right between his legs."  
"And then when those dirty Yanks go to sleep-" Jonathan snuck a glance at O'Connell, "No offense."

"None taken," O'Connell assured him easily.

"-We'll sneak up and steal that book right out from under them!" he finished triumphantly.

"And you're sure that you can find the secret compartment?" O'Connell asked me, sounding a bit skeptical. 

"Oh yes, if those beastly Americans haven't beaten us to it," I answered, then added cautiously as an afterthought, "No offense."

"None taken," O'Connell repeated, sounding a bit annoyed.

Jonathan lowered the sledgehammer for a moment and looked around the chamber.

"I do say," he started, "What's our smelly little friend got himself up to?"

O'Connell shrugged.

"I don't know," I responded. "I haven't seen him since earlier...he just disappeared."

"Perhaps he'll get himself killed in some cruel and unusual manner," Jonathan said, almost hopefully. "That'll have him off our hands."

"Jonathan!" I scolded, trying not to be too entertained at the idea.

"Sorry, sorry," he apologized at once. "But I just can't live with that God-awful stench much longer."

"I'm with you there," O'Connell agreed.

"Yes," I said impatiently, "Well, can we please focus?" 

"Sure," Jonathan said. "Focus. Focus. I won't stop until that book is in my hands, Evy! Focus. I'm going to _focus_."

~*~

Exactly seven and a half minutes later, Jonathan had given up completely on digging and was instead swinging his sledgehammer like a golf club.

"Do you think he's still focusing?" O'Connell asked with a smirk, setting down his own sledgehammer and fixing his eyes on me.

"Call me crazy, but somehow I doubt it," I retorted, giving him a smile. 

"Yeah, he doesn't exactly seem as into this mummy stuff as you are," observed O'Connell. 

"He's not into much of anything, except beautiful women and alcohol," I responded, staring over at him. His tongue stuck out of the corner of his mouth in concentration as he thwacked the 'golf club' forward.

"Yeah, well, I can see how those are preferable to mummification," O'Connell said. 

"If you're a man," I scoffed. "But really, it's a fascinating process, and really quite beautiful-"

"Beautiful?" O'Connell repeated skeptically, wrinkling his nose.

"You didn't let me finish," I reminded him impatiently. "You see, it was all so intricate...they removed all the vital organs and put them in these beautifully decorated jars with the most fascinating designs, and-"

"So lemme get this straight," O'Connell cut in, sounding vaguely disturbed, "They ripped out your guts and stuffed them in...jars?"

"Yes," I replied excitedly, "And then they removed your heart as well. And you know how they took out your brain?"

"Evy, I don't think we need to know this," Jonathan announced in a sing-songy voice.

Ignoring him, I continued, waving my hands a bit as I spoke. "They take a sharp red hot poker, stick it up your nose, scramble things about a bit, and then rip it out through your nostrils!"

O'Connell winced. "Ow...that's gotta hurt."

"It's called mummification," I reminded him. "You'll be dead when they do this."

Still looking quite stirred, O'Connell ordered grimly, "For the record, if I don't make it out of here, _don't_ put me down for mummification.."

"Likewise," Jonathan agreed with a nod, swinging the sledgehammer even more violently than before as if to emphasize his point.

And with a startling _boom!_, a very large, very heavy...something fell from the ceiling, practically shaking the ground when it hit it.

Trembling a bit, I tentatively stepped closer to it, my eyes hurriedly studying it.

"Oh my God..." I whispered as realization hit. "It's...it's a sarcophagus...buried at the base of Anubis." I paused, considering all the options. "He must have been someone of _great_ importance...or...he did something _very_ naughty."

I exchanged a nervous glance with O'Connell, whose face bore the same expression that I'm sure was on mine.

One thing was for sure.

We had stumbled across something _very_ important.


	7. Inexplicable Madness

**

A Girl Like This

**

_

by She's a Star

_

****

Author's Note: I'm so sorry about the extreme lack of updates. :-) I seem to have a knack for neglecting my fics. But here is chapter 7, in all its eight pages of glory. I had a particularly good time writing this chapter, so I hope you all enjoy it. :-)

**

Chapter Seven: Inexplicable Madness

**

With one shaking hand I brushed off the surface of the sarcophagus, grayish dust collecting on my fingertips. 

"Well, who is it?" Jonathan asked curiously.

I squinted, studying the hieroglyphics engraved into the stone.

"He that...shall not be named."

Oh my. This was getting interesting.

"This looks like some sort of lock," O'Connell said, blowing off a thick layer of dust to reveal a metal contraption shaped like a flaming sun.

It looked incredibly familiar....

"Well, whoever's in here sure wasn't getting out," Jonathan declared. 

"No kidding," O'Connell agreed. "It'd take a month to crack into this thing without a key."

And suddenly, I remembered.

The man with the hook...

"A key!" I cried excitedly. "A key, a key! Now, that's what he was talking about!"

"Who was talking about what?"

"The man, the man on the barge," I continued quickly, grabbing Jonathan's knapsack and rummaging through it. "He was talking about a key!"

I triumphantly pulled the key from the bag.

"Hey, that's mine!" Jonathan said indignantly.

I pressed down on the same spot that my fingers had found before, and right on cue, it popped open. 

Perfect. It matched the lock exactly.

I smiled triumphantly, wondering just what other clues could be found inside with our friend...

"Aaaaahhhhh!!!!!"

I jumped up at once at the sound of the agonized scream, leaning toward O'Connell.

"Aaaaahhhh!!!!"

It sounded a bit like the voice of the warden...

"Aaaahhhh!!!"

We all rushed at once out into the passageway, only to find the warden running and screaming like a madman, clutching at his head.

_What on earth...?_

"Aaaahhhh!!! Aaaaahhhh!!!"

And with a sickening crack, he ran head-on into the wall and dropped to the floor, dead before he hit it.

~*~

"What do you suppose killed him?" I asked Jonathan later that night. We sat around a campfire, its warm glow inviting as the desert fell colder.

"Did you ever see him eat?" Jonathan responded wanly.

O'Connell approached us. He sat down and announced, "Our friends got a little distortion of their own today."

_What_, I thought impatiently, _Could be more important than a semi-sane if not disgusting man going completely and inexplicably mad and running head-on into a wall?_

"...a few of their diggers were melted," finished O'Connell.

_All right. That could be a bit strange as well._

"What?" I asked, aghast.

"How?" Jonathan demanded.

"Salt acid," O'Connell responded grimly. "Pressurized salt acid. Some kind of ancient booby trap."

"Maybe this place really is cursed," Jonathan said, sounding a bit miserable.

As if on cue, the wind wailed and caused the campfire to waver a bit, almost threatening to leave us in the darkness.

O'Connell and Jonathan exchanged a frightened glance.

"Oh, for goodness sake, you two!" I cried, exasperated.

"Don't believe in curses, huh?" O'Connell asked.

"No, I don't," I responded forcefully. "I believe if I can see it and I can touch it, then it's real. That's what I believe."

O'Connell smirked a bit and cocked his rifle. 

"I believe in being prepared," he announced.

How typical.

"Let's see what our friend the warden believed in," Jonathan suggested, sticking his hand into the pouch of our newly deceased former companion. Tantalizingly slowly, he rummaged around in the sack, and I was tempted to tell him that he shouldn't. After all, the warden had suddenly gone mad! It certainly couldn't be wise to go through his things...

"OUCH!"

Jonathan yelled in pain.

"Oh my God, what is it?!" I demanded, my heart pounding at twice its normal rate.

"What?!" O'Connell asked, sounding equally panicked.

My brother stuck his finger briefly into his mouth before pulling out a chipped bottle of alcohol.

"It's a broken bottle," he announced. I relaxed at once, but glared at him. Honestly, it was just like him to frighten people over nothing. 

"Seagrams," Jonathan continued, inspecting the bottle. "Ten years old. Well, he might have been a stinky fellow, but he had good taste."

I sighed in a mixture of relief and exasperation, but tensed up again as O'Connell's expression immediately grew alert. The sound of gunfire filled my ears."Stay here," he ordered, tossing a huge gun at me before grabbing his and rushing away. 

"Wait for me!" I cried out after him. "Wait!"

I scrambled up from the sand and bounded after him, lugging the huge gun along with me.

"Evy," Jonathan's voice called faintly from behind me, "Excuse me, but didn't the man just say STAY HERE?!?!"

Ignoring him, I ran after O'Connell and suddenly found myself caught in the midst of an all-out battle. Black-clad men riding whinnying horses sped across the campsite as hollers and screams filled the air. Bullets flew like horizontal rain, one zooming so close near me that I could feel it ruffle my hair.

Terror immediately engulfed me, and I felt myself freeze. 

_Evelyn, you are the most idiotic person in the history of the world!_ I thought, distraught. _O'Connell told you to stay there, but did you listen? No, of course not! You had to attempt to prove that you're not a wimpy pathetic female, which you _are_, and now you've gone and killed yourself!_

Death was heavy in the air as gunshots sent men tumbling from their horses, uttering last cries of pain. I glanced at O'Connell, who fired his guns with expert ease. I watched two, three, four men fall to the ground, writhing in agony, and he didn't even flinch.

He showed no remorse, no mercy as he robbed the men of their lives. He simply did it, with a sort of detached heartlessness in his eyes that scared me. How could someone so intelligent and funny and sweet (on rare occasions, anyway) be so utterly...cold?

Suddenly, the sound of a galloping horse filled my ears, and, overcome with dread, I turned around hopelessly to find one of the black-clad warriors riding toward me. His horse gained speed with each step, and terror pulsated through me as I stared up at him. Dark eyes sparkling with heartless malice, he rose his scimitar.

_OhGodOhGodOhGodOhGod..._

My own shrieks filled my ears, and I prayed desperately that they wouldn't be the last sounds I heard. This was simply too soon, too fast, too unexpected and utterly final. I couldn't die yet! I wanted to get married, have a family, see England again, find out who was in that sarcophagus, get O'Connell to _really_ kiss me...

And before I knew what I was doing, I had hastily fired the elephant gun. It catapulted the man off his horse and he soared across the air before hitting the ground with a sickening thump. I flew backwards as well, the force of the shot sending me into a sand dune. All the air in my lungs seemed to escape that moment, and I laid, frozen, for a few seconds before taking a few shallow, uneven breaths.

I was alive...I was alive...

And the man, I realized as my heart sunk, was probably...dead.

Oh God, I'd probably killed him.

I was a murderer.

Vaguely in the back of my mind it registered that the chaos had stopped, but still I didn't attempt to stand up. 

_God, Evelyn, you're a murderer..._

I wanted to cry, to scream, to disappear beneath the sand. Moments before, I had been begging God for my life, and now I'd taken someone else's in order to keep it. 

It was almost too much to bear.

"Hey, are you all right?"

I looked up to see O'Connell staring down at me in concern. Gently, he freed the gun from my grasp and helped me up. 

"Yes," I lied shakily. "I'm fine, thank you."

He studied me intensely, his blue-green eyes filled with a sort of worried tenderness. Lightly callused fingers brushed against my cheek, and for a split second, the guilt lifted. If only I could stay there in his arms, feeling so safe and warm and perfect...

"See! That proves it!" 

Daniels' near hysterical voice suddenly brought the previously hazy world into frightening clarity, and I wanted nothing more than that indistinct blur to return, the blur where the only thing I saw was O'Connell's eyes...

"Old Seti's fortune's gotta be under this sand!" continued Daniels.

"For them to protect it like this, you just know there's gotta be treasure under there," agreed Henderson. 

O'Connell didn't agree. "These men are a desert people - they value water, not gold."

The Americans continued to talk amongst themselves as I tried to stop myself from thinking of what had happened...

_Evy, perhaps he's all right, perhaps he's fine._

Intrigued by this idea, I reluctantly pulled out of O'Connell's arms and headed toward the direction where I'd fired the gun. Perhaps I could find him, perhaps he would be all right...just a bit hurt, that's all.

"Evelyn, what are you doing?" O'Connell asked, sounding concerned as he followed after me.

"I'm looking," I informed him, my eyes searching desperately. Maybe, just maybe...

"Yeah, I got that," O'Connell said impatiently. "For what?"

"The man," I replied, feeling hysteria creeping over me. No, no, I wouldn't lose my calm. I simply had to stay level-headed. I could find him, I was sure of it. I...

And then I found him.

O'Connell's voice rang lightly in my ears - _"Man? What are you talking about? What man? Evelyn, what are you talking about?"_ - but it didn't register in my mind.

Instead I stared in horror.

He was dead, bleeding and horribly mangled. One of his legs was bent grotesquely out of place - perhaps a horse had trampled him.

"Oh, God," I murmured, suddenly feeling very dizzy. "Oh my God..."

"Evelyn, what's wrong?" O'Connell asked, voice thick with worry. "What the hell is the matter with you??"

"O...O'Connell," I stammered, tears brimming in my eyes. "I...that man...I...he's dead."

O'Connell studied me in bewilderment for a moment before his eyes widened in understanding. 

"Ohhhh...." he said softly, looking terrified as tears began to spill down my cheeks. I didn't want to be crying, and yet I couldn't stop - I'd killed him, I'd killed that man, and now he stared up at me with lifeless ebony eyes. 

He hadn't even closed his eyes. 

"Evelyn," O'Connell said, wrapping his arms around me and rocking me lightly back and forth. "Shh. It's all right...I...it's okay."

"No," I said, shaking my head and trying to choke back sobs. "No, it's not. I _killed_ him, O'Connell."

"Shhhh," he said, still keeping one arm around my shoulders as he led me back to the camp. 

"He was going to kill me," I ranted, the words flowing out of my mouth rapidly. "He was going to kill me, and I should have let him. I shouldn't have...shouldn't have..."

"Shhh," O'Connell continued, sinking down in front of the fire next to me. "Sweetheart, it's okay."

"No," I said, shaking my head again. "God, I'm...I..."

"Here," O'Connell offered me the bottle of wine that Jonathan had discovered earlier. "Here, have a drink."

"I don't drink," I sniffled.

"Just have one," he ordered gently. "It will calm you down."

"All right," I said, wiping the tears from my cheeks before accepting the bottle with shaking hands. "Just one..."

~*~

I was laughing. 

Laughing for no reason, really, except that it felt so good to laugh. When was the last time I'd laughed like this? It certainly had been ages...perhaps I'd _never_ laughed like this. Laughed so hard that tears ran down my cheeks, that my whole body ached from shaking in mirth.

Far, far in my mind, there was the softest, haziest memory of a twisted, disgustingly contorted corpse with open black eyes....

And suddenly, as I focused on it, the laughter died and the picture became clearer.

"I wanna 'nother drink, please," I said to O'Connell, who held the bottle of wine in his hands.

"Are you sure?" he asked, looking a bit worried. "I really think you've had enough..."

"O'Connell, give me that bottle right now!" I shouted at the top of my lungs. "Give it to me...give it to me, or I'll...I'll..."

I couldn't for the life of me think of anything, and instead burst into a fit of hysterical giggles.

"Fine," O'Connell said, looking a bit frightened. "Here you go."

He handed the bottle to me, and I took a huge swig. Immediately, the tart liquid filled my mouth and seemed to send a fuzzy warmth through my body as I swallowed.

"That is _so_ good," I announced with a little moan of pleasure, wondering why my voice came out so much louder than I intended it to.

From their tent, one of the Americans shouted, "O'Connell, quit banging the girl and let us get some sleep, for the love of God!"

"I'm _not_-"

"Whatever, O'Connell!"

O'Connell's cheeks had flushed bright red, and I burst into laughter again.

"Oh my goodness," I cried, giggling madly. "He actually thinks that we're...we're-"

"Okay, Evy," O'Connell cut in hurriedly. "You don't drink much, do you?"

How had he known?? Perhaps he was psychic...

"No, I've never drank this much," I responded, shaking my head, which caused the world around me to spin a bit. "You know what else I've never done?"

"Do I _want_ to know?" O'Connell asked cautiously.

"Fired a gun!" I finished.

He relaxed visibly.

"And you know, I'm absolutely hopeless at defending myself hand to hand too!" I proclaimed. "So, you know, it's lucky that you gave me that big huge gun...and I shot it...and..."

A strange, bad sort of feeling began to take over me, and I hurriedly took a few more swigs of wine.

"Well, I could show you some basic fist fighting techniques," O'Connell offered. "You know, in case you ever need them."

I gasped. Goodness, he was so sweet!

And quite handsome too....had I ever noticed _quite_ how handsome he was?

He'd probably look _amazing_ without a shirt on.

"That would be so wonderful of you!" I cooed, setting the wine into a sleeping Jonathan's arms. "You're so wonderful!"

"Er...thanks," O'Connell said uneasily.

I stood up, then promptly found myself on the ground again. Shaking his head and smiling at me, O'Connell helped me up from the ground. His arms were wrapped around me.

"Do you think you can stand on your own?" he asked.

"Sure," I slurred, wondering if he was going to kiss me. 

But instead, he let go of me and walked away, standing around three feet across from me.

"What are you doing?" I asked, disappointed.

"I thought you wanted me to teach you how to fight," he said, looking utterly confused.

"Oh, yes, yes!" I said with a bright smile. "Yes, that's right!"

I had completely forgotten about that.

Hehehe.

How silly of me.

"Okay," O'Connell said. "Try a right hook..."

A hook? Where?

"Bob your fist," O'Connell instructed.

Bob?? Who was Bob?

I studied his own fist - he had _very_ nice fists - and curled my own into a ball, mirroring his actions.

"Here we go," O'Connell said. "Mean it...hit it right here."

He gestured to his own hand.

"Mean it," I echoed, slurring, and attempting to slam my fist into his hand. The whole world seemed to spin around a bit, and I found myself falling forward into his arms. I immediately burst into hysterical laughter.

"Okay, it's time for another drink," announced O'Connell, grabbing the bottle out of Jonathan's arms.

Oh, no. I'd had quite enough, thank you very much.

"Unlike my brother, sir," I informed him loftily, accepting the bottle, "I know when to say no."

As I took a sip, he studied me, befuddled.

Strange, that man was. (But really, _very_ attractive...)

"Uhhh huh," he said, nodding slowly. "And unlike your brother, Miss, you I just don't get."

"Ah," I said in understanding. "I know. You're wondering...what's a place like me doing in a girl like this?"

He studied me as though I'd just said something completely crazy.

(Honestly, I had to wonder about him sometimes.)

"Yeah, something like that."

"Egypt...is in my blood," I explained, steadying myself a bit. It really would be quite nice if the world would stop spinning around me like that. "You see, my father was a very, very famous explorer, and he loved Egypt so much that he married my mother, who was an Egyptian...and quite an adventurer herself."

"I get your father, and I get your mother," O'Connell said. "And I get him-" he nodded towards Jonathan, "-but what are you doing here?"

What was _I_ doing here?!?! 

Why, how dare he ask such a question??

I had _never_ been more insulted!

"Oooh!" I cried in fury. "Look, I-I may not be an explorer or...or an adventurer or a treasure seeker or a gun fighter, _Mr._ O'Connell, but I am proud of what I am!"

I stood shakily and glared down at him.

"And what is that?" O'Connell asked, staring up at me. He looked so amused..._why_ did he look amused? Didn't he _realize_ that he'd made me angry?

He did look quite handsome when he was amused.

"_I_," I announced regally, "Am a librarian."

Ha! That would teach him!

He gave me a weak sort of smile, and I felt my heart melt. He was _so_ handsome...and was he _ever_ going to kiss me?

Well, I supposed I would just have to take matters into my own hands.

I sat down next to him and stared into his eyes...he had such pretty eyes, like the sea on a sunny day...

"And I am going to kiss you..." I informed him softly. "...Mr. O'Connell..."

"Call me Rick," he instructed gently.

Ohhh...

I smiled warmly.

"Rick..." I sighed. 

My lips slowly neared his, and the world seemed to spin in a haze around me as I leaned closer and closer...

I closed my eyes, slowly...

And fell into black.


	8. No Harm Ever Came From Reading a Book

****

Author's Note: I've grown quite re-obsessed with this story, and so naturally, I had to update. As always, sorry for little inconsistencies that aren't loyal to the movie - I haven't seen it in quite sometime. Also, I think (I'm not quite sure, as I wrote this ages ago) that a bit of the dialogue in the beginning of the chapter was taken from one of the early drafts of the movie script, so that isn't mine either.

Enjoy. :-)

****

Chapter Eight: No Harm Ever Came From Reading A Book

Never, in my entire life, had my head throbbed so violently. My stomach seemed to be doing somersaults, and I felt as though I could pass out at any moment.

Actually, unconsciousness would be quite welcome.

"I can't _believe_ that I allowed the two of you to get me drunk," I groaned miserably as made our way through the passageway toward the room with the sarcophagus.

"Don't blame me," Jonathan said innocently, "I don't even remember being there."

"Well, neither do I, thank you," I responded with another groan as we entered the chamber.

"You don't?" O'Connell asked, an expression of extreme hurt on his face.

Oh. My. God.

_What_ had I done??

"No...." I said, biting my lip in nervousness. "Why....should I?"

"Gee, yeah!" O'Connell said in mock delight, a huge grin on his face. "You told me it was the best time you ever had!"

Oh God. Oh, dear God.

I felt my cheeks heat up as I averted his gaze. Surely I hadn't..._done_ anything with him, had I? I wouldn't have. No. Never. Not even when intoxicated would I participate in anything even the slightest bit sinful!

...would I?

I snuck a glance at O'Connell, and he winked at me in response.

Oh my _God!_

"Well, really, O'Connell, _whatever_ I did was your fault entirely," I snapped. "You're the one who told me..._ordered_ me is more like it, to have a drink!"

"A drink," O'Connell retorted, smirking. "As in one. Not the whole bottle."

"Well, you should have stopped me!" I cried. "I was out of control!"

"Were you ever," he agreed, wriggling his eyebrows.

Lord. He had _better _just be teasing. If he wasn't, I would be forced to die of embarrassment.

Both angry and humiliated, I made my way over to the sarcophagus, leaving my brother and O'Connell behind. 

_Ah, well, Evy, forget about it,_ I instructed myself. _You couldn't have stopped it. You were completely drunk. Now, let's just concentrate on this._

Soon, we would have the sarcophagus open...we would find even more clues as to who this mysterious (and most likely unfortunate) fellow was.

"Oooh, I've dreamt about this since I was a little girl," I proclaimed excitedly as we reached the sarcophagus.

"You dream about dead guys?" O'Connell asked, sounding a bit disturbed. 

"Look!" I cried, studying the sarcophagus. "All the sacred spells have been chiseled off...This man must have been condemned not only in his life, but in the next."

"Tough break," O'Connell said tonelessly.

"Yes, I'm all tears," Jonathan deadpanned impatiently. "Now let's see who's inside, shall we?"

Jonathan placed the key into the lock and twisted it slowly. Anticipation built with each second, and I watched intently. It was all so exciting!

The cover to the sarcophagus creaked, and it moved a tiny bit. Slowly...slowly....

"AAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!"

The screams of Jonathan, O'Connell, and myself all mingled in my ears as I stared in horror at the...the _thing_ that had popped out of the sarcophagus. It was wet, sticky, as though it had been there for a much shorter time than three thousand years...its featureless face was somehow haunting, menacing, as its toothless mouth hung open.

"Oh, God!" I snapped, raising a hand to my racing heart. "I hate it when these things do that!"

O'Connell studied the mummy, disgusted. "Is he...supposed to look like that?"

"No," I responded, shaking my head. "I've never seen a mummy look like this before...he's still...still..."

"Juicy," O'Connell and Jonathan finished in disgusted unison.

"Well....yes," I agreed, wrinkling my nose. "He must be more than three thousand years old, and...well, it looks as though he's still...decomposing!"

"Hey, look at that," Jonathan said, studying the top of the sarcophagus. 

"Whaddya make of these?" O'Connell asked, gesturing at the heavy scratches engraved into the stone.

"My God," I said softly, studying the marks in fascination. "These marks were made with...fingernails."

Hands trembling, I ran my fingers slowly down the marks.

"This man was buried alive," I declared gravely.

Squinting at the stone, I continued, "And he left a message..."

A shiver ran up and down my spine as I decoded the hieroglyphics.

"Death...is only the beginning."

~*~

I was hungry, and tired, and my head still throbbed horribly from the previous night's excessive drinking.

It was nothing a meal and a good ten hours of sleep couldn't cure, and I yearned for both with frightening intensity.

And still I couldn't drag myself away from the sarcophagus.

I tried not to look at the mummy - he'd been dead for thousands of years, and yet he still made me uneasy. Those empty eyes seemed to observe my every movement, to pierce into my soul.

What had happened to him?

Shivering, I stared past the creature into the darkness of the sarcophagus when my eyes caught sight of what looked to be a sort of bug. Mustering up my courage, I reached past the mummy (all the while possessing the childish suspicion that he would leap up at any time and frighten me to death) and pulled it out.

It was a scarab skeleton...I'd read about the bugs. They were flesh eaters, used by the ancient Egyptians to torture those who deserved to be eaten alive.

Shivering, I snatched a few more of the skeletons out of the coffin before picking up the torch that lit the room and walking throughout the many twisting passageways out to the camp. It was refreshing to breathe in the cool, fresh air after being surrounded by dust and decay for so long.

As I passed the American Egyptologist, I saw that he held in his arms a black book.

_The_ black book. 

The Book of the Dead.

I'd read about it, of course. It performed the counter-action to Book of Amun-Re, and was a dark ebony as opposed to the other book's sheer gold pages.

If this truly was the book, I had stumbled across a most fascinating discovery.

Well, perhaps _I_ hadn't stumbled across it, but I was determined to see it, to make sure that it really _was_ what I suspected.

Suddenly, my eyes fell upon a lock not unlike the one that we'd found on our friend's sarcophagus.

....Well, '_not unlike_' wasn't exactly correct.

No, it was identical.

The Egyptologist let out a little grunt of frustration as he attempted with all his might to pull the book open, and realization dawned upon me. 

Excitement immediately surged through me, but I tried to stifle it as I told him nonchalantly, "I believe you need a key to open that book."

A key that happened to be in my possession.

Leaving the Egyptologist to stare after me, bewildered, I approached where O'Connell, Jonathan, and some of the Americans sat around a campfire. 

"Look what I found!" I exclaimed, holding out the scarabs.

"You're in her seat," O'Connell announced to Beni, who didn't show any sign of leaving. 

"_Now_," O'Connell growled. 

"Yup," Beni squeaked at once, moving away. 

I took his place, excitedly showing my discovery to my companions. "Scarab skeletons! Flesh eaters! I found them inside our friend's coffin. They can stay alive for years, feasting on the flesh of the corpse." I paused, then continued a bit more somberly, "Unfortunately for our friend, he was still alive when they started eating him."

"So somebody threw these in with our guy and they slowly ate him alive?" O'Connell asked, looking disgusted at the idea.

"Veeery slowly," I responded, grinning.

"Well, he certainly wasn't a popular fellow, was he?" Jonathan said dryly.

"Probably got too frisky with the pharaoh's daughter," O'Connell said with a grin. 

I smiled back at him before continuing. 

"Well, according to our readings, our friend suffered the Homdai, the worst of _all_ Egyptian curses. In all my research, I've never heard of it being used."

"That bad, huh?"

I nodded with widened eyes. "They never used it because they feared it so. It was written that if a victim of the Homdai should ever arise, he would bring with him the ten plagues of Egypt."

Jonathan shuddered. "Who the bloody hell would want a curse like that? The bloody bastards are cursing _themselves_!"

"Well, honestly, Jonathan," I replied logically, rolling my eyes. "Be reasonable. The victim would be dead, and therefore he couldn't exactly arise, now, could he?"

"I hate it when you go all factual like that," Jonathan muttered darkly.

I ignored him. "Besides, how could the ten plagues _possibly_ be reawakened?" After a pause, I announced forcefully, "I don't believe any of it, not a single bit. Fairy tales and hokum - that's all it is."

O'Connell shook his head with a vague hint of a smile on his lips as he absently prodded at the fire with a stick.

"What is it?" I asked at once. "Honestly, O'Connell, you seem like a reasonably smart man. Why do you believe in these ludicrous things??"

He smirked at me. "You can't be too confident."

"And why not?" I asked, a bit annoyed.

"If there's one thing I've learned about confidence," O'Connell proclaimed, "It's that it never fails to turn around and bite you in the ass."

I narrowed my eyes at him in response to his foul language, but he didn't seem sorry - instead, he offered an infuriating grin.

"I wonder if Jonathan has any more alcoholic beverages," he said innocently.

"Mr. O'Connell, I will _never_ take another sip of-"

"I like you drunk," he announced with a wicked smile before closing his eyes and feigning sleep.

"Oooh!" I muttered, furious. "O'Connell, if you so much as laid a _finger_ on me while I was in a...vulnerable state, I'll find a way to awaken our little friend and will personally make _sure_ that I send the ten plagues after you!"

My threat, however, seemed to go unnoticed.

As a matter of fact, he didn't show any sort of response...his breathing only grew more even.

Rolling my eyes in exasperation, I rose from the campsite. If I didn't get at least fifteen feet away from him within the next few minutes, there was no telling what I'd do.

And as I stomped across the site, still muttering darkly, I heard him chuckling to himself.

Make that twenty feet.

~*~

I supposed that Jonathan's gift for snatching things right out from under peoples' noses without their noticing had run in the family. 

With every step I took, I grew more sure that the desert air, or perhaps the excess sand, was somehow harmfully affecting my brain. The pre-Hamunaptra Evelyn Carnahan certainly wouldn't have sneaked over to a sleeping man in the middle of the night and pulled a discovery that was rightfully his right out of his arms.

But I was holding what I suspected to be the Book of the Dead, and strangely enough, wasn't bombarded with guilt and self-loathing.

Really, I just wanted to take a peek at it...I would sneak it back into the Egyptologist's arms before he had ever known it was gone in the first place. Simply no harm could come from this. No harm at all.

_Gulp._

Trying to stop my hands from shaking, I made my way back over to our campsite. The flickering orange fire provided light in the pitch-black night, and both Jonathan and O'Connell were sleeping soundly.

"That's called 'stealing', you know."

...Or at least, _one_ of them was sleeping.

The other had now opened his eyes and was studying me wryly.

O'Connell never ceased to be an inconvenience.

"According to you and my brother, it's called 'borrowing'," I informed him, a bit annoyed at his awakening. Now I would either have to look at the book with him there or return it.

Well, I certainly didn't intend on the latter.

Not yet, anyway.

"I thought the Book of Amun-Re was made out of gold," O'Connell commented, standing up and walking over to examine the book.

"It _is_ made out of gold," I replied with certainty. "This isn't the book of Amun-Re. This is something else...I think this may be the Book of the Dead."

O'Connell looked slightly perturbed at this piece of information.

"The Book of the Dead?" he repeated. "Are you sure you want to be playing around with this thing?"

A rush of excitement flooded through me as I slowly lowered the key into the lock and twisted it. The book immediately popped open.

"It's just a book," I said distractedly. "No harm ever came from reading a book."

As soon as the words left my lips, the wind let out a dreadful howl and threatened to muffle the campfire. 

O'Connell paused for a moment before observing, "That happens a lot around here."

I tried to ignore him, tried to ignore the wind, and yet I couldn't. A strange sort of unease had crept over me...an unwelcome sense of foreboding.

_Evelyn, get ahold of yourself!_ I thought sternly. _You're just as bad as O'Connell and Jonathan! Honestly! _Nothing_ is going to happen!_

As though somehow defying my doubts, I flipped open the book and studied the first page. 

"So, what's it say?" O'Connell asked, interested. 

"It speaks of night and day," I responded, studying the hieroglyphics with intensity. This was amazing...to think that my fingers were the first to brush against these pages after three thousand years....

_"Ah kum Ra. Ah kum Dei..."_

I was so enraptured as my eyes raced across the page that I barely noticed the words were spilling aloud from my lips. The sound of my voice forming the foreign words was strange, yet thrilling. Shivering a bit with excitement, I read on, my tone gaining more force and intensity with each word.

_"Ah kum Dei ah kum Dei ah kum Dei-"_

"NO!!!"

I fell silent at once, suddenly feeling inexplicably fatigued. Bursts of adrenaline, sheer _power_ had pulsated through me as I'd read those words, almost as though I'd been under some sort of enchantment....some sort of curse.

And now I was so completely tired, raw, and...fearful?

Yes, the fear was there, and yet I hadn't the slightest idea why.

It was just a book...just a book...what was there to fear?

And now the Egyptologist's voice rang through the formerly peaceful night, radiating horrified panic.

"You must not read from the book!"

As soon as his words ceased, another noise filled the endless desert - a high, piercing sort of shriek that started faint and grew more and more forceful with each second.

Filled with trepidation, I slowly moved my gaze from the book to the open, midnight blue sky. O'Connell did the same, and I could sense an aura of uneasy anxiousness from him.

He knew something was coming.

The entire _camp_ seemed to feel it - camels grunted uncomfortably as those who formerly slept awoke with displeased mutters.

And suddenly, a swarm of humming black burst at us with the intensity of a thousand soldiers racing into battle. At first, dazed, I thought it to be a sudden shower of ebony rain, but realized with rapidly growing fear what it actually was.

Locusts - thousands, _millions_ of locusts hurled at us with reckless abandon. A few of the Americans' diggers were completely covered while the rest of us stared for a moment in horror.

O'Connell took charge of the situation.

"RUN!!!" he shouted at once.

We all obeyed, making our way desperately through the hungry swarm and into the tombs.

Throughout the chaos, Jonathan had caught up to us, and he laced his fingers with mine as we sped throughout the twisting labyrinth of tunnels.

"Where the _hell_ did they come from?" O'Connell demanded breathlessly. 

Though we all suspected the answer (an answer which I feared was my fault), there wasn't time for a reply, as at that moment an explosion of shiny black insects burst from the sand.

"Scarabs!" I screeched, recognizing them at once. 

"Go! Go!" O'Connell ordered, pulling out one of his guns and blasting a few select bugs to pieces with expert aim. "RUN!"

Humph. He needn't tell me to. I could have figured that out on my own.

We sped into one of the larger chambers, the squealing bugs gaining on us. I shivered in horror, wondering exactly what it would be like to feel one of them burrow their way into my skin and climb through my insides before finding a nice piece of flesh to feast upon...

Not pleasant, I was quite sure.

Screams echoed throughout the tomb and filled my ears as I watched Jonathan and O'Connell leap with ease from our pathway and onto a ledge. Panicked, I continued to race forward, and found myself with a wall on one side and a few thousand bugs on the other: completely cornered.

_Oh dear...ohhhh dear...oh my goodness...OhGodOhGodOhGod...._

Completely terrified out of my mind, I watched the bugs in horror as I slowly crept along the wall that had done part in trapping me.

And suddenly, I found the wall moving from behind me.

"Ohhh!" I screeched, moving right along with the wall.

Gone were O'Connell, Jonathan, and (thankfully) the scarabs.

I found myself in one of the tunnels, covered in cobwebs and thick with dust. Shivering, I let out a little miserable moan - here I was, trapped alone trying to outrun the ten plagues of Egypt.

Not a good situation in the least.

_"Ohhh...ohhh..."_

A helpless, pained groan immediately filled my ears, and the first thing that came to mind was that it was a ghost.

_Oh, stop it, Evelyn!_ I lectured myself. _You're turning into a child!_

There were no ghosts, of course.

_"Ohhh...."_

Just some incredibly creepy ghostly wails, that was all.

My eyes flew wildly around the passageway, searching for the source of the noises, and I sighed with relief as soon as I fixed my gaze upon the back of one of the Americans.

"Ohhhh," I sighed, deciding I had never been quite so happy to see anyone in my entire life. "Oh, Mr. Burns, thank goodness. I was just starting to get scared, I lost everyone-"

He turned around, and a sickening wave of nausea ran through me. A piercing scream escaped my lips as I stared at him in horror, unable to look away though it was by far the most gruesome sight I'd ever seen.

"My eyes..." Burns wailed despondently. "My eyes!"

Where his eyes had gone, I had no idea.

But right now I was staring into the empty sockets where they should have been.


	9. Accidental World Destruction

****

Author's Note: Sorry it seems to always take so long to update this - I haven't written it in ages (I had the first eleven chapters saved on my computer from last November, when I went on a bit of a writing frenzy) and therefore often forget it exists. Which, really, is a shame, as I do have a lot of fun with it and I absolutely adore writing Evy. I've also been inspired to start writing again by Buffelyn's fabulous new story, The Professor and the Madwoman, which is just great on a million different levels.

So . . . yes. Hopefully, you'll be seeing more of this more frequently.

Chapter Nine: Accidental World Destruction

I thought that I had been scared before.

One certainly couldn't blame me - I'd just come across a man whose eyes appeared to have been gouged out, and somehow I doubted that he had done the handiwork himself in some twisted reenactment of _Oedipus the King_.

But as I studied Mr. Burns in horror, a slight movement seemed to occur from behind me. Shaking in terror, I turned.

_Oh. My. God._

"Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!"

There, not three feet away from me, stood our dear friend the mummy.

Only, despite his three-thousand year demise, he appeared to be very much alive.

_Without_ Jonathan's help.

But with, I noticed, a new pair of eyes.

"Ohhhh," I mumbled, horrified, as I inched against the wall. The mummy took a few steps toward me, and I shivered in disgust.

He was completely rotted, colored a sickening shade of brown - a crude and grotesque parody of what a man was supposed to look like.

"Ohhhh," I muttered again. My tone high with horrorstricken desperation, I weakly asked Mr. Burns, "Please....help me."

"My tongue," responded Mr. Burns miserably in slurred speech completely devoid of enunciation, "He took my tongue..."

The destroyed man began to crawl backwards slowly, and I immediately regretted every less-than-glowing thought I'd ever had about the poor Americans. That petty rivalry seemed so utterly _foolish_ now that we were in danger.

To put it lightly.

"Please don't leave me," I requested desperately as Burns continued to crawl down the passageway.

The mummy was so close to me now that I'd gone faint from his putrid stench, that I could _feel_ evil radiating from his decomposed form.

Rotten lips contorting repulsively, he uttered one word.

_"Anck-su-namun."_

_O'Connell, _I thought desperately, _If you save me now, I will _never_ be the slightest bit annoyed by you again...I will love you until the day I die...just HELP!_

The foul creature continued to speak, and I translated his words in my chaos-ridden mind.

_"Come with me my princess Anck-su-namun."_

Oh dear...oh dear...who for the love of God was Anck-su-namun, and why did he think I was her?

Well, one thing was for certain, I wasn't going _anywhere_ with him.

_O'Connell!!_ I wailed mentally. 

And suddenly there he was, suddenly beside me. My eyes drank in the sight of him hungrily, and I wanted nothing more than to throw my arms around him and profess my undying gratitude.

However, I sensed that this was _not_ the time or place.

"There you are!" he cried, looking both relieved and annoyed. "There's no time to play hide and seek! Come on! Let's get outta here-"

His eyes fell upon the mummy, and he fell silent for a millisecond before a surprised shout escaped his lips.

"Whoa!!"

I heard Jonathan's voice yelling out my name faintly, and hoped that he wouldn't come over here. If there was one thing my dear older brother couldn't handle, it was a resurrected mummy.

The mummy seemed to size us up for a moment before letting out a loud, furious roar. It rang through the air, numbing my eardrums and causing me to shudder involuntarily as his repugnant breath blasted at us.

O'Connell was ready with a retort at once.

"Aaaaahhhhh!!!!!!!" he mimicked before firing the elephant gun and causing bits of the creature to go flying through the air.

"MOVE!" O'Connell ordered, grabbing my hand and dragging me through the tunnels with a speed so rapid that it could only be caused by sheer panic.

I could hear the mummy roaring furiously from where we'd left him, and I resisted the urge to either let out a scream of frustration or burst into tears. Both were equally appealing, and I had to put them out of my mind in order not to perform them.

Relief immediately washed through me as we flew out of the temple and outside. I took a few deep, hungry breaths of fresh air before realizing that the black-clad warriors that had invaded the camp had returned.

One of the men, a rather attractive one with long black hair and dark eyes that sparkled angrily, began to speak. 

"I told you to leave this place or die! You refused," he proclaimed, then added morbidly, "Now you may have killed us all."

He let his words sink in for a moment, and they lingered in the air with merciless resolve.

"You have unleashed the creature that we have feared for over three thousand years!" 

Oh dear. 

I feared that had been my doing.

"Relax," O'Connell instructed casually. "I got 'im."

"No mortal weapon can kill this creature!" the man proclaimed, intensity building in his voice. "He is not of this world!"

As if in a sickening sort of example of the monster's handiwork, Burns was dragged over by two other men in black. A weak, pained whimper escaped his lips.

"You bastards!" Daniels sneered, aghast, as he studied his friend in horror.

"What did you do to him!?!" Henderson demanded violently.

"We saved him!" the man shot back. "Saved him before the creature could finish his work!"

I didn't even want to imagine what 'finishing his work' would be.

"Now leave, all of you," the man instructed, "before he finishes us all!"

The man paused, contemplating. "Now we must go on the hunt and try to find a way to kill him, before he consumes the Earth!"

"I told you," O'Connell growled, annoyed, "I already got him."

The man froze, studying O'Connell in what seemed to be bitter disbelief.

"Know this," he said, his words cutting through the silent air like a knife. "This creature is the bringer of death. He will never eat. He will never sleep. He will never stop."

A moment of silence hung amongst us as we stared in horror at the mysterious man in black.

Finally, breaking the quiet, O'Connell said weakly, "Evelyn, I _told_ you not to mess with the book."

~*~

It really is quite remarkable how quickly humans can accomplish something when driven by fear. Within little more than a quarter of an hour, the entire camp was packed up and being loaded onto the camels.

I slipped past O'Connell, who was calling out orders in an immensely comforting 'I've seen it all before and I've got this under control' sort of manner. Biting my lip in nervousness, I neared Mr. Burns. He'd been left alone temporarily as the Americans hurried to load their luggage on the assorted camels and horses, and a soft, continuous moan escaped his mouth.

I stood before him for a moment, then sunk down onto the dry sand. I waited for a moment for him to acknowledge my presence before realizing that he could no longer see me. 

A biting sting seemed to pierce my heart at this.

This was my fault.

All my fault.

"Mr. Burns," I whispered, resting my hand gently upon his own. 

An indistinct mumbling that sounded vaguely like 'Who's there?' escaped his lips, and I felt tears collect in my eyes. Determined, I blinked them back. There was no time for crying.

"Mr. Burns, it's Evelyn...Evelyn Carnahan."

His hand trembled under mine, and upon studying the poor man I realized that his whole body was trembling in shock.

"O'Connell's girl?" he asked weakly, words horribly slurred and distorted.

Normally, I would have gone off like a bomb, shrieking out numerous reasons why I was _not_ 'O'Connell's girl' and had no intention of ever being 'owned' by a man.

But everything had changed now, and I knew that I had to as well.

With a gentle smile that he couldn't see, I replied, "Yes. O'Connell's girl."

Mr. Burns let out another unintelligible murmur that I deciphered more quickly than the others. The more I heard him speak, the more I understood him - I'd always been rather quick at such things.

"He's going to kill me," Mr. Burns said weakly. "He's going to kill us all, all of us who opened that chest."

_And whose fault is it that he's back in the first place, Evelyn?_ a wicked voice inside my head sneered.

"He won't kill you," I assured the American, wrapping one arm awkwardly around his broad shoulders and squeezing him in a quick half-hug. "It will be all right, I promise. I'll fix this."

But in all truth, I doubted I would. Even the greatest of heroes probably couldn't defeat such a monster, much less a mousy librarian with a dreadful temper and complete lack of coordination in any way, shape, or form.

I'd done idiotic, disastrous things before. My incident in the library only weeks ago (had it been weeks? It seemed lifetimes) had proved that quite well. But never had I thought myself to be a bringer of purely accidental world destruction.

_That_ had seemed a bit out of my league.

I suppose I'd acted with sheer idiotic frivolousness - something I'd always considered Jonathan to possess and myself to be completely devoid of. I'd been so foolishly confident, so sure that nothing could come of reading a few pages. (But _perhaps_ it would urge the Bembridge scholars to finally accept my application.)

Now the Bembridge scholars seemed galaxies away, and I couldn't bring myself to care about them one bit.

Well, whatever was going to happen, I knew one thing was for certain.

As O'Connell had proclaimed, confidence never failed to turn on you and bite you right in the....

Never mind.


	10. Contract Terminated

****

Author's Note: So. Heh heh. I kinda tend to . . . er, shall we say, neglect this story. It's quite cruel of me. This chapter's the last pre-written one that I have, and I wrote it exactly a year ago as of this month, so I'm going to have to force myself to get back into The Mummy and Evy-voice to finish this. But . . . I will try to! If only so I'll have one more completed fanfic to my name.

As always, sorry for any errors or lines that don't match up to the ones in the movie, yada yada blah blah.

****

Chapter Ten: Contract Terminated

Fort Brydon seemed to radiate a heavenly glow as we approached it, a silent group with fear dancing in our eyes. 

I wanted nothing more than a bed and twelve-or-so hours of sleep. After sleeping, I could think of a solution to this. Well....perhaps I could.

But not now.

Now everything was frazzled and scattered in my mind, and I couldn't even begin to focus. All I wanted was sleep.

Perhaps things would look brighter in the morning.

_Though,_ I thought glumly as thunder boomed and lightning illuminated the sky, _that seems quite the unlikely possibility._

~*~

I could barely remember passing through the Fort gates, nor the soldiers checking our papers and letting us enter. My vaguest memory was that of a young man who kept eyeing me in a most inappropriate manner leading us up to my quarters, and O'Connell telling him to go do something to his mother that would certainly qualify as perverse incest.

But as I opened my eyes, all I could really remember was the sleep...the glorious, dreamless, deep sleep that had rescued me from my just-the-slightest-bit-troubled life for (I checked my bedside clock) thirteen and a half precious hours.

With a long yawn, I stretched my arms over my head and let them fall on either side of me....

Only to find that my left one hit something.

I let out a shriek and turned to see O'Connell laying beside me, an expression on his face that I'd never seen before. It was almost...malevolent, amusedly heartless.

"O'Connell!" I cried out at once. "Get...get out of here! What on _Earth_ do you think you're doing? I-"

But before I could even finish my fervent statement, I was cut off as his lips pressed against mine, insistent. A shudder ran up and down my spine, and I recoiled. I had fantasized more than I liked to admit about kissing O'Connell, and _this_ wasn't how it was supposed to be. 

His lips seemed to _taste_ of malice, and the sensation filled me with a fear so deep, so passionate that I felt as though I may lose consciousness at any given time. 

This _couldn't_ be O'Connell. It couldn't be.

He thrust his tongue hungrily into my mouth, his fingers digging into my waist, and I tried to fight before realizing with terrifying resolve that he had complete control over me. I'd never felt so vulnerable, so weak.

This couldn't be happening...O'Connell would _never..._

And suddenly, his lips grew vile, decayed, and it spread across his face, and I knew that he _wasn't_ O'Connell...he was the creature, the _monster_, and his kisses wouldn't stop, and his hands mercilessly tore at my nightdress, and tears streamed down my cheeks as his voice echoed in my head.

_"Come with me, my princess Anck-su-namun..."_

"No," I argued, my voice somehow flowing from my lips even though they were entirely consumed with his. "No, no, I won't go with you! I won't let you take me! I'm not Anck-su-namun, I don't know what you're talking about! Where's Rick, what have you done to him?? Get off of me! Get off! I won't go with you! I won't go with you!"

And somewhere, faintly, as though from a thousand miles away, from a distant memory, I heard O'Connell's voice.

_"Evelyn...Evelyn? Wake up! Evelyn, wake up..."_

"Evelyn! Wake up! Wake up!"

My eyes fluttered open to find O'Connell standing above me.

A surge of fear shot through me, and before I knew why, I had scrambled across the bed and away from him.

"You...you stay away from me," I warned him, voice trembling. 

"Evy, what are you talking about?" he asked, completely befuddled.

_Evy, really, what _are_ you talking about? It's just O'Connell..._

But then I remembered what had happened only a few moments before - his lips and his hands snaking all over me, so merciless and cruel...

How had I escaped?

"Evelyn, you were having a nightmare," he said, concerned. "I could hear you screaming all the way down the hall...I nearly had to kick the Goddamn door down to see if you were all right."

A nightmare...a nightmare, that was all it was.

"You're O'Connell," I muttered, sounding almost crazed. "You're O'Connell, you're Rick, you're not...him."

He took a few steps forward, and I involuntarily flinched.

"Evelyn, what the hell is the matter with you?!" he demanded. "Why are you acting like this?"

"In...in my dream," I began testily, "You...was it you? Oh, I'm being stupid, of course it wasn't really you, but..."

"You're not making much sense here."

"The monster...the creature, you were him....or he was you, oh, I don't know! And I'd waken up, and you were in here, and I was yelling, and then you kissed me...oh, God, it was awful." I shuddered at the recollection.

"Thanks," O'Connell deadpanned.

"That's not what I meant," I said impatiently. "It was just...it wasn't...I'm sure kissing you would be...."

Oh, wonderful. I could feel my cheeks flush, and estimated that my face was now roughly the shade of a fire engine.

"It was just awful," I finished weakly.

I was ninety-nine-point-nine percent sure that he would give me grief for my utter incoherence and revealing of too much information, but when I looked up at him, he had an almost...gentle smile on his face.

Sinking down on the bed next to me, he announced, "Well, I'm pretty sure that I'm O'Connell....I think so, anyway."

With a wry smile, I asked, "Do you swear?"

He chuckled. "Every damn day."

And with that, he awkwardly leaned toward me and pecked me on the cheek before silently leaving the room.

A giddy smile made its way onto my face as my fingers lightly brushed against my tingling cheek.

My heart was fluttering uncontrollably, my knees were completely weak, and I felt that I wouldn't be able to wipe the smile off of my face for at least a month.

If this was the effect that a split-second kiss on the cheek had on me, I felt rather certain that kissing O'Connell would be by no means an awful experience.

~*~

I was in the middle of a full-fledged battle with my hair when a knock on the door sounded. Hastily, I shoved a few more hairpins in assorted places to leave me looking semi-presentable, then rushed to the door.

_Honestly, Evelyn, stop acting like a lovestruck schoolgirl!_ I lectured myself. _Knowing your luck, it will just be Jonathan._

But my luck had apparently changed, because the door swung open to reveal O'Connell.

The heart-fluttering and weak knees immediately returned with full force, and I had to bite my lip to stop the smile from blossoming again.

"Hey," he said, grinning.

"Hello," I responded, allowing myself a teensy smile for a split-second, then smothering it before it could morph into an all-out beam.

"What's with the lip-biting?" he asked, stepping inside my temporary room. "Still disgusted by the dream?"

Not wanting the real reason to slip, I nodded. "Yes."

"You know," he said, giving me a devious sort of smile, "You called me Rick when you were talking in your sleep."

"Well, that _is_ your name, isn't it?" I replied coyly.

"You know when else you called me Rick?" he asked, smile growing larger.

Oh dear.

"No, it seems to have slipped my mind," I said loftily.

"Want me to remind you?" he asked, positively _beaming_ now.

"I think I'd rather stay blissfully ignorant, if you don't mind," I responded, feeling a blush creep onto my face.

He immediately began to flutter his eyelashes vigorously, then proclaimed in a foolishly high falsetto, "I'm going to kiss you now, Mr. O'Connell!"

"I did _not_," I protested at once, desperately hoping that he was making this all up.

"Oh, but ya did!" he assured me wickedly. "And there's more!"

"I don't care to hear it, thank you."

"Call me Rick," he instructed in a foolishly deep baritone, continuing the little reenactment. 

A high, fluttery sigh immediately escaped his lips, and he squeakily breathed, "Rick..."

Oh, wonderful. So I'd _already_ kissed him, and I couldn't even remember it.

Hopefully nothing had happened after that.

"And then...?" I asked, trying to remain composed.

"And then you passed out," he responded promptly. 

I resisted the urge to let out a sigh of relief.

Instead, I felt a coquettish smile completely unlike any I'd ever worn before begin to dance across the corners of my lips.

"Yes, I think I recall that," I lied in a breathy sort of purr that sounded surprisingly...seductive. "Yes, Mr. O'Connell, I was going to kiss you."

A soft, careless sigh fell from my lips.

O'Connell looked positively enamored.

"Oh, yes, it's all coming back to me now," I said, a tad bit dramatically. "There really _was_ a spark there right then, wasn't there?"

Taking a few steps toward him, I continued. 

"Now, _that_ would have been a kiss," I declared. "Mr. O'Connell, I would have kissed you like you've never been kissed before."

We were mere inches away from each other now, and I stared up at him with an amused smirk.

"Well, we could, uh...uh..."

I noticed that his nervous habit of excessive 'uh's had returned.

"You know, uh, pick up where we left off."

I nodded, tilting my chin up a bit, towards him. He had apparently taken this as an invitation. His eyes had closed...his lips parted slightly...his fingers rested lightly upon my waist...

And, inwardly snickering, I promptly pulled away and crossed the room.

"No, I really don't think so, O'Connell," I said, my normal tone resuming. "It just isn't the same now...not the moment, if you know what I mean."

He opened his eyes and gave me an annoyed glare. 

"Oh, you're really clever," he said sarcastically.

I allowed a little self-satisfied smile to paint its way onto my face.

"I know. Aren't I?"

~*~

In an instant, the sight of Mr. Burns brought back everything that my childish flirtations with O'Connell had temporarily caused me to forget.

It wasn't that it was a particularly dramatic incident - rather, I just saw him in his quarters as I passed his open door. He sat, still visibly shaken, with a cup of tea, a bandage wrapped around his eyes. I could hear a few of the other Americans' voices from inside the suite.

His life was eternally destroyed. He couldn't talk, couldn't see. Living must have seemed an endless punishment to him at that moment, and it was entirely my fault.

And the others...the others who had open the chest would be robbed of their lives as well.

A strange sort of violent determination surged through me, and I stood up a bit taller. _I_ could change this, somehow. Perhaps not on my own, but O'Connell would be sure to help, and together we could create some sort of solution. I was almost positive of it. We would send that disgusting, repulsive (not to mention foul-breathed) creature back to the Land of the Dead, and by golly, we would have a bloody good time doing it!

...

I froze at once as I realized that the Americans' constant annoying slang and Jonathan's excessive use of British swear words were now invading my thought process.

A bit of a frightening concept.

Oh well. 

Still determined, I marched into the suite that Jonathan and O'Connell were sharing without so much as a knock on the door. As usual, my brother held a glass of alcohol - it appeared to be sherry - in his hand, and he grinned at the sight of me.

"Hey, Evy."

His speech was a bit slurred.

"Jonathan, honestly," I scolded at once, immediately adapting my 'I-am-your-sister-and-you-must-obey me' tone. "_How_ much have you had to drink?"

"I lost count at twelve," he responded with a sheepish grin.

"Ooohhh!" I scowled angrily, snatching the drink from his hand and slamming it onto the coffee table. I knew that he would pick it up again as soon as I wasn't watching, but was too preoccupied to be persistent on the drinking matter.

"O'Connell," I called, impatient. "O'Connell, where are you?"

The door to the bathroom swung open to reveal a shirtless, shaving cream-covered O'Connell holding a razor in one hand.

"What happened?" he asked, at once alert. "What's going on?"

I immediately burst into giggles.

"Oh," he said with an over-exaggerated sneer. "It's you."

"You...look...ridiculous," I informed him in between fits of mirth. (Not to mention quite nice without a shirt.)

"Well, excuse me," he deadpanned. "But you _are_ the one who burst in here unexpected-"

"Oh, never mind all that," I cut in, at once remembering my reason for bursting in there unexpected. "We have to stop him."

"Who?" O'Connell asked blankly.

I threw my hands into the air in exasperation. "Isn't it a bit obvious?!"

O'Connell seemed to ponder this for a moment before nodding knowingly. "Ohhhh. Him."

"Yes, _him_," I said impatiently.

'Who the bloody hell is him?" Jonathan demanded from the sofa.

"The mummy, Jonathan!" I snapped, irritated.

"Ah," Jonathan said, nodding. "Ah, yes, right."

_Hon_estly.

"What do you mean, do something about him?" O'Connell asked in disbelief. "We aren't doing _anything_ about that. We-"

"For God's sake, O'Connell, go put a shirt on and wash your face!" I instructed, completely fed up. "I'll be waiting in my quarters - I _need_ to talk to you. And _do_ hurry, won't you?"

"Depends on what I'm hurrying for," he responded with a mischievous grin.

All right, that was _enough_.

Positively livid, I yanked the glass of sherry out of my brother's hand and hurled it in O'Connell's direction before stomping out of the suite.

"Well," I heard O'Connell say weakly, "I suppose that's reason enough."

As I stormed back to my room, I furiously wondered exactly _how_ he could behave so stupidly. It wasn't as though this was a matter to be taken lightly - on the contrary, I was quite sure that the fate of the world was in our hands. And naturally, like the idiot he was (he _was_ a man, after all), he simply tried to flirt his way through it.

Well, I wouldn't have it! 

_If he acts this way anymore,_ I thought violently as I entered my quarters and crossed my arms in front of my chest expectantly, _I swear to God I'll...I'll..._

Realizing that I wasn't quite capable of anything more extravagant than giving him a few painful scratches with my fingernails, I settled with that.

_And when I do, he'd better be grateful that I'm having mercy on him, too!_

O'Connell burst in around thirty seconds later, and without speaking, he picked up my trunk.

"What on _Earth_ are you doing?" I demanded.

"I know what you're thinking," he responded flatly. "And the answer is _no_. We're leaving. We're done. End of story."

"How can you _say_ that?!" I asked, aghast. "This curse...this _thing_ could bring the end of the world as we know it!"

O'Connell slammed the trunk down, then rushed over to my dresser. He grabbed a stack of blouses and put them in.

"I thought you said you didn't believe in this fairy tales and hokum stuff," he commented, almost accusing.

I grabbed the stack of blouses and retorted forcefully, "Well, having an encounter with a three thousand year old walking, talking corpse _does_ tend to convert one!"

"Well, forget it," O'Connell instructed, this time taking a clump of skirts and placing them in the trunk. "We're out the door, we're down the hall, and we're _gone_."

"Oh, no we're not!" I argued, unpacking the skirts.

"Oh, yes we are!" O'Connell corrected me, his tone mimicking my own. He grabbed a stack of books and shoved them into the trunk.

"Oh, no we're not!" I said in my best 'and-that's-final!' voice that never failed to work on Jonathan. "_We_ woke him up, _we're_ going to stop him!"

"We?" O'Connell repeated in disbelief. "What 'we'? _We_ didn't read that book. I _told_ you not to play around with that thing! Didn't I tell you not to play around with that thing?"

"Oh yes," I exclaimed in annoyance. "Me, me, me. I, I, I. _I_ woke him up and _I _intend to stop him!"

"How?!" O'Connell demanded, still throwing my things into the trunk. "You heard the man! No mortal weapons can stop him!"

"Then we'll just have to find some _immortal_ ones!" 

I snatched the things out of my trunk and set them down. 

"There we go with that 'we' again," O'Connell observed irritably, still packing my things.

Obviously, he wasn't getting the message.

Perhaps it was time to abandon the subtle approach.

I slammed the trunk closed with all my might, considering it an added bonus that it his fingers happened to be resting on it.

He let out a yelp, glaring at me.

"According to the book, once this creature has been reborn, his curse will spread, and as he grows in strength, so will his curse grow, until the whole of the Earth is destroyed!"

"Yeah?" O'Connell snapped. "So? Is that my problem?"

"It's _everybody's_ problem!" I cried incredulously.

"_Look_, Evelyn," O'Connell said, exasperated and obviously struggling to retain his calm. "I appreciate you saving my life and all, but when I signed on, I agreed to take you out there and bring you back, and I did that. End of job. End of story. Contract terminated."

I didn't want his words to sting.

I didn't want to care - after all, I had an issue to deal with that was just the _slightest_ bit more important.

But I _did_ care, and they _did_ sting.

Horribly.

"So that's all I am to you?" I asked, studying him intently and fighting to keep my tone even. "A contract?"

He didn't seem the least bit sorry.

...Perhaps it really _was_ true. 

Perhaps I _was_ only a contract.

"Listen, you can tag along with me," he said, fed up, "Or you can stay out here and _try to save the world!_"

He emphasized the last five words to get across how utterly ridiculous he found the idea.

Well, the world _did_ need saving, and it looked as though I would be forced to do it alone.

Besides, it was blatantly obvious that O'Connell didn't want me 'tagging along' with him, anyhow.

"I'm staying," I informed him, smothering my pent-up emotion so that it wouldn't reveal itself in my voice.

"Fine!" O'Connell snapped furiously.

"Fine!" I called angrily after his retreating figure.

"Fine!" he echoed forcefully.

"Fine!" I said loftily, nonchalantly, as though I really didn't care if he left or not.

"Fine," he said shortly, slamming the door behind him.

I gave the door a death glare for a few moments before, to my horror, I unwillingly burst into tears.

I didn't _want_ him to go, for goodness sake! I wanted him to stay, to help me. I couldn't do it on my own, that much was clear. And as much as I loved Jonathan, I was quite positive that he wouldn't be of any help.

So, great.

Wonderful.

It looked as though I was doomed to go down in history as the girl who'd destroyed the world.

But really, I could handle that. Or at least, I could at the moment.

But what I couldn't handle, what had caused my rogue outbreak of tears, was that O'Connell had left.

And that I'd been nothing more than a bloody _contract_ to him throughout our entire....

Entire nothing.

We'd never had anything.

We'd never had bloody _anything_.

And even worse, I was starting to sound like Jonathan again.

And perhaps even _worse_ (could things truly get worse?), I had found myself completely, utterly, and hopelessly head-over-heels in love with Rick O'Connell.

~*~

The heavily perfumed scent of the bubbles was somehow incredibly relaxing. With a relieved sigh, I wiped my tear-stained cheeks with the sleeve of my robe before slipping out of it and into the bathtub. Immediately, a bit of the stress seemed to soak away.

Things _could_ be all right. I didn't _need_ O'Connell. His presence would be...nice, yes, but I was fully capable of taking care of things myself. Women were just as strong as men were, and with at least ten times their intelligence level. If I could craft some sort of plan to get rid of the monster, and then Jonathan helped me carry it out, things would be fine. Just fine.

Even if it _was_ without O'Connell.

I realized that it wasn't the first time I'd turned to the bubble bath when my heart had been savagely torn to pieces and stomped on repeatedly by idiot men. (Or perhaps, even, they'd stuck a red hot poker into my chest, scrambled things about a bit, and ripped it out through my nostrils...quite the disgusting concept indeed.)

I could remember crying over Nathan quite vividly - wondering _why_ he'd chosen some other woman over me, why I was never quite perfect enough, why I'd even thought that he'd actually want to marry me.

With Nathan, I'd loved him because we had things in common. We could talk about the same interests without awkward pauses, and agreed on practically everything. When I thought back, I couldn't recall a single true _fight_ taking place between us.

But now I was wondering if I'd _really_ loved my ex-fiancé in the first place.

O'Connell and I had absolutely nothing in common. We bickered, we taunted one another, we got each other drunk, we had full-screaming fights complete with trunk-slamming and throwing-of-sherry. 

And yet I felt myself _craving_ O'Connell's presence when he wasn't around, even if it was only to yell at him for God knows what. And when we _were_ together, there seemed to be a bit of a sparkle in the air...everything seemed complete somehow.

Not to mention that a kiss on the cheek from O'Connell had practically driven me mad with ecstasy, a feat that _none_ of Nathan's embraces had accomplished.

All at once, I felt so fortunate that I _hadn't_ married Nathan, that he _had_ been 'organizing the card catalogues' with some other woman. His infidelity saved me from a mundane life, a loveless marriage.

But somehow I knew that losing O'Connell could never be fortunate.

We had _something_.

The sort of something that I hadn't even believed in until I met him.

_Drip...drip..._

I stared at the faucet, vaguely annoyed. All I wanted was a nice, long, peaceful bath, and yet it seemed I couldn't even be granted _that_ simple wish. Throughout all my reminiscing and reflections, it had dripped with steadfast timing, a new drop falling approximately every three seconds.

Groaning, I reached over and attempted to twist the knob of the faucet fully off, but froze as I studied one drip...

And then the next...

And the next...

Amidst the sweetly scented white bubbles, a tiny pool of crimson grew.

_'And the rivers and waters of Egypt ran red, and were as blood.'_


End file.
